


Alloys

by Emaiyl



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Angst, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Happy Ending, Marriage, Multi, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, OOC, Polyamory, Resurrection, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-07-08 00:02:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 43,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15918912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emaiyl/pseuds/Emaiyl
Summary: In return for resurrecting Jon and Jaime, Melisandre requests a marriage, and a journey.





	1. Gold

The Night Queen looms over Jaime.

Standing tall on her hill of frost, she wields a great blue shard of ice.

She is blood's ice and winter's pain.

Her eyes pierce Jaime with deepest cold. It stabs through him.

Jaime is breathing hard. He and Brienne have been fighting for hours, weaving and diving to avoid the Night Queen's strikes. How much more Jaime can take, he doesn't know. He's unhurt, and Brienne too, but if they fight for much longer, they'll collapse. They're sweating beneath their heavy armour. Every slash of the Night Queen's spear is more likely to kill them. They've managed to survive, barely.

What they haven't managed to do is strike a killing blow. The Red Woman can't help; she's on the other side of the battlefield. Spells and shadows sing their violent songs through her hands.

Daenerys and her dragons dot the air, tiny black specks in the distance. From the ridge Jaime's fighting on, he can see she's trapped in a narrow valley, occupied by wights. If she can burn them all in time, she'll be able to get out. If she can't, she'll die a death that doesn't bear contemplating. But it's Daenerys. She has the power of dragonfire, and Jaime sees she's using it well, and might just make it back to Winterfell alive. Drogon is unleashing a thick gout of flame that burns through the grey creatures, blasting them into piles of black ash. His flames heat the air. When the chaos of battle breaks for a single, short moment, Jaime is thankful for that bit of warmth. Brienne and Jaime continue their dark dance. Brienne is still fighting, breathing hard, sweat pouring off her brow. It darkens her hair. Her cheeks flush. Jaime wishes it were for very different reasons, but that isn't something he can think of now. 

If only he had reached Winterfell earlier. Bandits and raiders had slowed his journey. On the road, when he wasn't sleeping or travelling, he was training, Widow's Wail in his left hand. There had been no time for him to become truly adept, but even the little he trained had been better than nothing. By the time he had reached Winterfell, it was in chaos. The dead had been upon them. The Night Queen had been poised to destroy them all. If they had failed to kill her, Winterfell would've fallen, the dead swarming Westeros like flies on a corpse. They had needed every able-bodied fighter they could find. Jaime was not quite able-bodied, but what little fighting skill he had developed on the road would have to do. Daenerys could imprison him, hear his testimony, and sentence him later. If he died fighting, the pain of his death would have to be suitable penance for his crimes. His sacrifice would not make people see him as noble or respectable; only Brienne saw that. He had nothing left but her, and this battle. So he had thrown himself into the fray. 

Now, Jaime's left hand is failing him. He wishes he'd had time to make a dragonglass blade for his stump. He only has himself, and his faltering hand. Here he is, in front of the Night Queen, trying to find a point of weakness. Brienne is trying, and faltering, too. She stumbles, slipping on a patch of ice. She splays out her legs to catch herself and cushion her fall, and the Night Queen sees the opportunity and slashes at Brienne's leg, opening a long, deep gash. Blood pours from the wound, soaking her gloves. She runs, slides, limps, stumbles her way towards help. If she stops the bleeding soon enough, she'll be fine. If not – Jaime doesn't want to think about that. Before they could talk, they fell into a sea of dead men. 

Jon meets Brienne on her way inside. They speak, and then Jon is at Jaime's side with Oathkeeper, the two men silently fighting their foe. They will both fall soon. The Night Queen will have her eternal winter. But Jaime fights on. And Jon wields Oathkeeper well, half-Stark that he is.

Daenerys has escaped the valley with her dragons, and lines of bright flame precede her path. The Night Queen turns from Jon and Jaime to watch the flames. Daenerys may be able to burn the Night Queen with dragonfire, if she can only get there fast enough. Jaime doesn't want to risk it. He looks at Jon, gestures at the ice woman. She's magical, driven and animated by forces they know nothing about. Valyrian steel might not be enough to defeat her, but it is all they have. The Night Queen turns back to them. Her eyes freeze Jaime from the inside. He's never felt so cold as when he looks at her. He sees the memory of all the times death was close, and all the grief he's ever felt. He looks at Jon. Jon looks back at him. Together, they raise their swords, thrusting them into the Night Queen's heart. 

Agony blooms in Jaime's chest, cold and blue. His blood freezes and burns. He hears a scream beside him. Jon-- something's happened.

Jaime's vision flashes blue, then green, then grey, then nothing.


	2. Silver

Drogon beats his mighty wings, wafting the stench of burning wights into Dany's face. Their ashes litter the valley below, and she gives the smoky sky a triumphant smile. Her heart beats faster in her exhilaration. If the sound of crumbling dead is any indication, the Night Queen is no more, and winter has gone. The evening feast will be as sumptuous as she can make it. Brienne and the Kingslayer were brave to have taken on the Night Queen themselves, working in sync, their bodies moving as one. It was a dance she didn't know herself; she had her dragons, and they were enough. All three were exhausted from the battle and would be happy to return to their roost. She would ask the herdsman for extra goats.

When Dany lands on the snowy ridge, there is nothing left of the Night Queen. The sleet and ice-covered field makes walking treacherous. The adrenaline rush of battle is fading, and she stumbles over the uneven ground. White wets her boots, then red. Two figures sprawl in the bloody snow. One is without a hand, the other--

No.

It is not the King of the Seven Kingdoms who lies there. Not Jon Snow.

Jon would never have the audacity to desert his queen. He wouldn't dare. He bent the knee; he swore an oath. His loyalty extends even into death. His Northern men would strike off the head of his ghost for betraying them. If Rhaegar had dragons in the afterlife, he would turn Jon's ghost to ash. 

Dany kneels beside Jon's body. Bloody, melted ice soaks through her furs, and all around her is the surreal smell of magic-infused death. The spear that killed him welcomes her. She could fling herself against its razor edges, follow him into the abyss of his disloyalty. As she closes Jon's eyes and runs his thick curls through her shaking fingers, she makes a silent vow. She will send Drogon and Rhaegal and Viserion to find his spirit. They will follow his shade. Jon's ghost will burn for what he has done. She sends a silent prayer to Drogo: _Find him, my sun and stars; journey through the Night Lands, find him and tell him what he has done to me; tell him I will have my vengeance; give me my vengeance._

She stands, and through dry eyes, she sees Brienne beside her. Brienne picks up Oathkeeper from where it has fallen, adjusting the bandage on her leg with a wince. Her hands are shaking so hard she can barely strap the sword to her side. She kneels and holds Jaime's hand in hers, pressing it to her cheeks. Her face is white, stricken. She squeezes her eyes shut, and her lashes glitter with unshed tears. When she opens her eyes, they fix themselves on Jaime's face. Brienne runs a hand through Jaime's hair, runs her finger down his nose, brushes her thumb against his mouth. A faint whisper-- _she cares for him_ \--interrupts the dull roar of Dany's grief. A terrible burden, to bear such terrible feelings for such a terrible man.

Brienne sees Dany beside her and steps away from Jaime's body, moving to stand beside her. Her face is now a stoic mask, except for her eyes. In them, midnight begs the sun to rise. “Your Grace. We'll not need to burn the bodies--” her mouth trembles, just slightly-- “but they'll need to be moved quickly.” Brienne's body is stiff but for her throat, which convulses, as if holding back a great wave.

A melodious voice interrupts them. The Red Woman, Melisandre, strides across the snow to stand before them. “Daenerys of the House Targaryen. Brienne of Tarth.” She pulls her hood off to expose her shiny crimson braid. “You must preserve the bodies.”

“Preserve--?” Brienne frowns, her brow wrinkling. She steps away from where Melisandre has walked in front of them, to look at the two dead men. Dany steps in front of Jon. He will have his funeral pyre. She will light it for him. She will burn him in the afterlife as well; she will let no one else touch him.

Melisandre's eyes are filled with something bright and hot. She pulls her cloak more tightly around herself and kneels between the two dead men. “They must live.” The light in her eyes grows. “I have seen it in the flames. They must live.”

“They're dead.” Dany's voice is flat, hard. Her boots crunch on the ice as she turns to stare at the Red Woman. “Your magic worked once on Jon. I never saw it. I only know the price I paid to bring back my sun and stars.” Snow, wet and cold, soaks into her toes.

“Forgive me, Your Grace,” Brienne says. “But--”

“But nothing, Brienne. Jaime is dead.”

Brienne's eyes shimmer with wet. Then her face shutters, the stoic mask in place. “Your Grace.”

The heat in the Red Woman's hand burns through the thick furs wrapped around Dany's shoulders. “You are angry because Jon Snow is dead. This is a small thing. You, Brienne, and these men are part of something much larger.” She smiles, all gentleness and ease.

Dany shrugs off the Red Woman's unnatural warmth. “Two men are dead and you're smiling. What could there possibly be to smile about?” If Dany were her father, Melisandre would burn.

Brienne reaches out to put a hand on Dany's arm, but Dany pulls it away. “Your Grace,” Brienne says, her voice soft, “Perhaps we should listen to what Melisandre has to say.”

The Red Woman spreads her hands to indicate the carnage on the battlefield, the blood, the bodies, and then gestures to the rising sun. “The war is over. What is there to do afterwards?”

“Rebuild,” Dany offers.

“Yes,” Melisandre says. “Rebuild. And the four of you – should you consent – will be instrumental in this process. We need all of you alive. If we are to create a land of light, you four must live, and thrive.”

Brienne raises her eyebrows. “A land of light.”

“Not a land where men burn alive, and gods burn dead, but a land of hope.” Melisandre is glowing, bright even against the snow.

Dany weighs the consequences. Melisandre has shown herself to be a woman of goodness and honour, nearly sacrificing herself many times. As a shadowbinder, she works with servants of light, and perhaps she wishes to be a servant of goodness, too. She has done only good since she came to Winterfell. “Tell us what this land of light entails.”

“It entails all four of you being alive, and one other condition. Beyond that, the flames have given me no more information.”

Dany feels the slightest flicker of hope, a cooler flame within the inferno of her rage. “If it will bring Jon back, then we consent.”

Brienne nods. “If it will bring Jaime back, we will do as you wish.”

They carry the now-freezing bodies into Melisandre's chamber. She gathers supplies, lays them down on the table before her. A shard of dragonglass, a silver dagger, a golden dagger. “Brienne, I will need your sword.”

Brienne unstraps the blade and passes it to Melisandre, her hands trembling slightly. The Red Woman lays the blade down beside the other supplies, then lights candles in all four corners of the room. Beside each body, she lights beeswax tapers, which fill the air with honeyed perfume. She says a few strange words and passes each implement through the flames. After a few moments, she relays both tools and instructions, Dany the dragonglass and the silver dagger; Brienne the gold dagger and the sword.

Daenerys stands in front of Jaime, and Brienne stands in front of Jon. The women cut the men above their hearts, then do the same to themselves. After mixing the blood, they smear it on their lips. At the final step, Dany hesitates. This man murdered her father. He tried to murder a child. He proved himself brave in battle, but she does not know him.

Brienne does not hesitate. She presses her lips to Jon's, and her kiss is swift, chaste. She is a warrior in more than one sense.

Dany presses her lips to Jaime's for the briefest moment. She can taste their blood.

The kiss between Dany and Brienne is equally brief, though when Dany pulls away, Brienne is blushing.

When she turns to Melisandre, Brienne is still pink. “You never told us the final condition.”

Melisandre is extinguishing each candle, starting with the four corners of the room, moving to the beeswax tapers. Smoke fills the air with a sweet smell. “Marriage.”

Dany sits in one of the chairs against the wall, her muscles sore with the release of suppressed tension. She rubs her eyes. Her head aches. “We will marry when our men return to life.” There'd been no time for such formalities.

Melisandre gathers up the candles, wrapping them in a velvet cloth. She nods at Dany. Then, she passes Oathkeeper back to Brienne, smiling at her with a mischievous expression. “Yes, you will marry.”

Brienne's eyes widen and fly to Melisandre's face. She fumbles the sword, nearly dropping it. “Jaime's not--” she says. “He doesn't--”

Melisandre says nothing. She oils the daggers and polishes the dragonglass, still smiling.

Brienne's face is red as she straps the blade back to her side. Dany raises an eyebrow in Melisandre's direction. “Yes, we will marry. But?”

Melisandre pours hot water into a basin, puts in a few drops of something with a pleasant floral scent. “You will all marry. Together.” She stirs the concoction, then dips in two cloths.

Through Dany's haze of shock, Brienne's gasp sounds muted, fuzzy.

The truth is a whip around Dany's throat. She recoils, then springs out of the chair, gripping the armrests tightly enough to hurt. “I will not touch the man who killed my father.” To be chosen or to choose: it does not matter. You are never safe. She is her father, her brother, her first husband.

“If that, Your Grace, is how you feel, I will not let you,” Brienne says, in a voice of Valyrian steel. Her eyes are cold, her face pale and drawn, her hands balled into fists. She looks from Dany to Jon to Jaime, and her gaze finally settles on one of the candle flames. She stares into it.

The Red Woman wears a serene smile, her robes translucent in the candlelight. “You need not consummate the marriage to fulfill the conditions of the vow.” She hands Dany and Brienne the wet cloths.

Dany cleans her lips with a vicious swipe. She can still taste the Kingslayer's blood. It is the same as hers, but so different. The whip tightens. “It would be done out of duty, and full of mutual hatred.”

Melisandre takes back the cloths, turns to the basin to rinse them. “It is not the physical act that matters. What matters is the blood vow. Marriage is a commitment. An oath. You have shared each other's blood. This seals the pact.”

“The Kingslayer did not consent.” And neither did Jon. What would it be like for him, to be dragged out of the abyss of death, yet again?

Melisandre fills a new basin, adds pungent-smelling oils, and dips in the cloths. She passes them to Dany and Brienne, gesturing to the bodies. “His life is his consent.”

Dany walks over to Jon's body, the cloth leaving a trail of drops in her path. “He will loathe me for that life.”

“One can learn to respect a loathed enemy.” Melisandre gives Brienne a pointed look.

Brienne cradles Jaime's face in her hands, washing even his eyelashes with care.

She is good, and kind, and cares for a man Dany despises. “I know what it means to marry reluctantly, to be sold, to be used, to be raped,” Dany says. She also knows what it means to come to feel for a man with honour much quieter than her own. She wipes Jon's face, the light lines on his forehead, the softness of his beard, the fullness of his lips. She is careful to be gentle with the bruises at his collarbone, on his arms and chest.

“You would prefer that Jon and Jaime die,” Brienne cuts in.

Dany washes the soft skin at Jon's wrists, then looks up at Brienne. The anger in Brienne's eyes, a winter night without fire. Dany's is a fire heating the night. “I would prefer not to spend my life with someone I hate. I'm sure the Kingslayer would agree.”

Melisandre piles the cloths with the others, then refills the basin and stands at it, rinsing her hands. “This marriage need never be full of feeling. It can be a marriage of friendship, sisterhood, brotherhood. But it must be a permanent bond. The resurrection will bind pieces of your lives together, forever. This marriage represents that bond.”

For Jon's sake, then. For his life, for his honour. Dany swallows. She still feels the leather wrapped around her throat. “Then I consent. But I will never touch the Kingslayer.”

Brienne's response is immediate. “I consent.”


	3. Steel

“She could execute you, Brienne! It doesn't matter what you did for the Realm!” Jaime's voice rings out through Brienne's chamber.

She paces. Hollow thuds resonate through the wood with each step; Oathkeeper adds to the chorus with high-pitched steelsong. “I don't care about dying! I wasn't thinking! You were already dead!”

She knows him, she wants him, she needs him, he's here, she needs him, he's alive, she needs him.

She needs to get away from this beautiful, infuriating man. He is alive and she needs to touch him. She needs to run him through with Oathkeeper. He is dead and she needs to kiss all her life into him. She needs to be alone. She goes to the window, where sleet spatters the glass with icy drops. She counts them. One. Five. Ten. Fifteen.

Jaime's so close she can hear his shaky breath and feel his warmth.

“What would I have done if you'd died?”

She can hear the stupid smile in his voice, this stupid man who won't leave her alone.

“You do all my thinking.”

Brienne turns her back to the window. She shivers at the feel of the cold glass on her skin. “You would have lived, Ser Jaime, because you're not a coward.”

He takes her hand. His is warm.

“It wouldn't have been a life, Lady Brienne.”

Jaime can't know, not with all of this. Not while he doesn't, he can't--

She pulls her hand away and moves it to her sword.

Jaime takes a step back from her, and his eyes flicker with hurt. Confusion. “Something else happened.”

She threatened the Queen. The Queen kissed her. Brienne touches her fingers to her lips.

Jaime's eyes follow her hand, linger on her fingers and mouth. There's a spark of anger now, and curiosity. “Something _else_ happened.”

She kissed the King. And the Queen. She threatened the Queen. And he's not dead. And she knows him. He's alive and she wants him. “Yes.”

“Since grief has made you rather impulsive, I expect you'll tell me quite soon.”

Soon comes sooner than Brienne likes. “Daenerys won't execute me. She can't.”

Jaime raises an eyebrow. “She has three dragons. I think she can do what she bloody well likes.” There's fear in his eyes.

“She can't. We need to marry.”

Jaime freezes in front of her. He stares, eyes wide. Then he walks to the table, pours a large cup of wine, and swallows it in two gulps. He drops into one of the chairs. “It seems the woman who once called me Kingslayer has been replaced with someone else. Where, pray tell, has the real Brienne gone?”

Brienne sits down beside him. The woman who would still call him Kingslayer is in a world without wanting him, needing him, knowing him. It is a much kinder world.

In this unkind world, Brienne says, “We all need to marry. Together.”

“What do you mean?” The spark is back in his eyes.

“Me. You. Jon. The Queen.” Brienne's voice barely carries over the sound of the sleet against the window, and the sloshing of more wine into Jaime's cup.

Jaime raises an eyebrow. “Together.”

“Yes.” Brienne's face feels very hot.

“Well,” he says, “the wedding night will be interesting.”

She doesn't feel the sleet in her bones, not anymore. “There isn't going to be a wedding night.”

Jaime's grin could light the Shadow Lands. “Why, Lady Brienne, there's something you haven't noticed.” Mischief sparkles in his eyes. “Anyone not frozen by the godsdamned war looks at you like they want to fuck your godsdamned brains ou--”

“Daenerys doesn't want one.”

His stupid grin drops off his stupid face. “You don't want--”

He's only recently recovered. He's Jaime. He can't, he doesn't--

“She doesn't, Ser Jaime, but we do have to marry.” The anger of that night still echoes. “She saw you in battle; she saw how you sacrificed your life to kill the Night Queen. But she wouldn't stop using that name for you.”

Jaime sighs. “I did murder her father. I don't expect anything less from the Mother of Dragons.”

Sleet batters the window. Brienne's too far away to count the drops. She wishes she weren't. The room is too small for these words about a wedding. It's too small for her heart.

*

A few days later, the Mother of Dragons sits beside Brienne as they gather in Melisandre's chambers. Cold rain thrums against the closed shutters, and gusts of wind blowing through the cracks set the red velvet curtains swinging. “Your Grace,” Brienne says. “I must offer my apologies. I was out of order when we last spoke.”

The Queen nods. “It was a difficult time.” A tentative peace offering. Brienne rather admires Daenerys, even if she can be a bit intense.

“I don't think you can talk, Dany.” Jon smiles quietly, warmly. “You weren't the one dead. Tell me what difficult is once you've died a few times.” Behind the dry humour in his eyes flashes a hollowness. He sits down beside Brienne, offering his hand. “How fares our Warrior for the Dawn?”

Brienne can feel the callouses on Jon's fingertips, and the fine hair on his knuckles. She swallows at the remembered taste of his lips, smooth and full. The whiteness of his throat. The taste of his blood. “About as well as can be expected,” Brienne says. “I'm curious to see what Melisandre has to say.”

Jaime slides in beside them, nods a greeting. “I hope this doesn't go on for too long.” Like Jon, dark circles ring his eyes. “Death is tiring.”

Jaime catches Daenerys' eyes with his own, serious and calm. He swallows. “Thank you.” His voice is quiet. “You were well within your right to let me die.” He looks at Daenerys as he did at Brienne in Harrenhal. That same openness.

Daenerys' eyes widen. She stares at Jaime like a bewildered child. Then, she looks away from him. She is again the Queen, and he is again the Kingslayer. Straightening her back, she takes Jon's hand in hers. “A queen does what she must for her king.” Returning her attention to Jaime, she says, “One day you will tell me about my father, and if you are lying, you will die.”

“And one day,” Jon adds, “You will come to the godswood. If you are lying, I will swing my sword.”

Jaime's eyes are still serious, but no longer calm. “Well,” he says, his tone acerbic, “perhaps the Red Woman should've kept me dead.”

Melisandre sweeps into the room. A musky-sweet, floral scent follows her. She lights candles, spreads the table with a velvet cloth, puts out cheese, wine and meat, and beckons them to eat. “Magic is draining for everyone involved.”

Where she got this feast is a mystery; the cheese is rich, the wine is sweet, and the meat is tender. Brienne ponders this as she chews. Melisandre says, “I have set the wedding ceremony to be held in a month's time. I must tell you what I have seen in the flames.”

The same flames that had told her to kill Brienne's peach-loving king. The same flames that had brought her to cast herself at Brienne's feet when winter came early, to offer herself as a fighter at Winterfell. The blood magic that had killed Renly, and left Daenerys barren, was the same magic that had saved the lives of two men. Brienne hadn't discussed this with Jaime; but he of all people would understand. She might not ever be fully comfortable with ambiguity, but he -- and the war -- had brought her far along the path.

“There is a greater purpose for your joining,” Melisandre continues. Jaime, Jon, and Daenerys all lean forward. Brienne sits back to listen, thankful for the chair's solidity.

“In my tenure as a shadowbinder, I have done regrettable things.” She turns to Brienne, head bowed, shoulders hunched in on herself. “I know what some of you may think of me.” She looks Brienne straight in the eye, and then Daenerys. “But winter came so early to Westeros, I had a choice. I did not sacrifice a child. Instead, I sent her to safety, and took to Winterfell, where I fought for many years.”

The Red Woman takes a book from her shelf. A cloud of dust erupts from it when she puts it on the table. “However, I still must atone for my mistakes.” The book rattles with dust and age as she turns to a page full of dragon lore. She was not serene when she came to Brienne at Winterfell, only ashamed. Melisandre continues, “I believe we can use dragons for good.”

At this, Daenerys gives Melisandre a questioning look, and urges her to continue.

The Red Woman's fingers trace a map of Westeros. “Imagine travelling across the world in hours, moving goods from the Dornish coast to Bear Island in the blink of an eye.” She turns the page back to dragon lore. “Magic, too, could become a force for good. If there were thousands of dragons, magic would become powerful. Directed towards positive ends, it could become a lattice supporting life and its beauty.”

“That still doesn't explain why you need us, and why we need to marry.” Jon's face is puzzled, curious. He scratches at his beard, combs his fingers through his hair.

Melisandre rises from the table to tie the curtains more tightly. Rain lashes at the shutters now, its beat a heavy, soothing rhythm. “There are four elements in the world. Four seasons. Four is the number of completion. It seems only natural to set four people on this mission.”

“And what mission would that be?” Daenerys asks. Interest flickers in her eyes.

“To hatch and train new dragons.”

Not even the wind howls through their stupefaction.

Jaime breaks the silence. “Did your new sense of purpose come with a free gift of insanity?”

“Only two of us are Targaryen,” Jon adds.

The serene smile on Melisandre's face is still holding. “The blood rite infused you all with the necessary essence.”

“Why not just let my dragons reproduce?” Daenerys sounds not like a queen, but like a curious young woman, her voice bright with excitement.

“For the dragons to have robust bloodlines, they must come from an area with as much diversity as possible.” She turns the pages of the book to a map of Essos, gesturing to the east. “What better place than where they were first tamed?”

Jon's face is skeptical, but also holds a mild curiosity. “And where is that?”

“An ancient city known as Stygai, full of shadows, demons, and dead creatures.”

The skin prickles on the back of Brienne's neck. If there is a less dangerous way to achieve the same purpose, she wants to find it. “Why not Valyria?”

“Going to Stygai is necessary for several reasons. You will not only have a chance to find dragon eggs, but something equally important. The trials you face will develop the fortitude you need to train dragons. You will bond more tightly together, allowing you to share that fortitude with each other. To mark the beginning of this bond, you will marry before you leave for Stygai.”

“We should use the dragons we already have,” Jaime says, a bit sullenly.

“Oh, they will help you on this quest.”

“How?” Daenerys asks.

“Travelling to Stygai on foot or by ship would be a long, dangerous journey.”

Brienne's stomach drops. “You don't mean--”

“You will train to ride dragons.”

It will be a long and exhausting month.

*

Brienne watches Jaime walk to the godswood.

He is gone for five days.

When he returns, his shoulders carry a quiet weariness.

*

“If you're to be my wife,” Jon says, his dark eyes candid, “You'll train with my sword. After all, I killed the Night Queen with yours.”

She breathes deeply, and smiles at the training yard's familiar aroma: a mixture of dirt, sweat, and metal. She hefts Longclaw in her hand, and swings experimentally. Longclaw is comfortable, the wolf's head warm in her palm. Its jeweled eyes gleam.

Brienne and Jon smile at each other, awkward and tentative, as they spar. They're breathing hard when Brienne says, “You brought Jaime to the godswood. He's still alive.”

Jon ducks to avoid her swing, swinging back. “He is.” With an agile maneuver, Jon avoids her blow. “I was afraid of what they would have to say to each other.” He parries her next strike. Sparks rain down on the half-frozen mud. “I'm not proud of this, but there was a part of me that wanted Bran to condemn him to death.” Jon's eyes are dark, his mouth tight. “Somehow I knew he wouldn't.” His face softens. “I know you were afraid for him.”

Brienne swallows the dust in her dry throat. Their strikes are slow but serious. “Ser Jaime is not who he was. But he was that man, once. I hope this does not affect our friendship.”

“How many times did you save my skin during this war? How many times did you put yourself at risk for others?” Jon stops, breathing hard. “And you are to be my wife, whatever that might mean for us.” She can smell leather and sweat. “I don't expect anything from you but this.”

*

The war took Brienne's measure.

It was the best judge of her character.

She is ugly and useful.

Jon is kind and dutiful.

Within, the slightest ache.

It is all she allows.

*

“I'm to see the Queen,” Jaime tells her.

She knows his right hand would be shaking.

*

Brienne finds Jaime with Rhaegal.

He is beckoning the dragon to set him alight, his eyes soft.

The creature does not move.

She rages at the Kingslayer's gentleness.

He is a stupid and terrible man.

*

Brienne is in the dining hall, sweaty from a long day of fighting and riding. Her stomach growls. She doesn't mind the simple fare served each day; no matter what they have to eat, the act is a celebration. The weather will warm, and variety will come. It will be good to have fresh vegetables and fruit. Sleet still falls outside, but roaring fires inside warm the hall and fill it with cheery crackling. Diners of all stripes bustle about, plates heaped full. Some quietly eat. Others complain, in the happy way of those glad something awful is over.

Brienne sits down with a thin vegetable stew, and she sees Daenerys approaching her. Without a word, the Queen sits down beside her. “Brienne of Tarth.”

“Your Grace.”

“I know what you must think of me.” Daenerys regards Brienne with a steady and searching look.

“I don't understand.” Brienne does understand. But she has learned that there are sometimes truths better left unsaid. Let the unspoken speak for itself when it is necessary.

The Queen could have her pick of any number of delicacies, and soon those from warmer climates will be available. But she, like Brienne, has chosen to have stew. She stirs it with her spoon, staring into the bowl. “I know the Kingslayer and I have our differences.”

In the relative anonymity of the dining hall, it is easier to have this conversation. It is a necessary honesty, in contrast to their earlier exchange of tactful formalities. Brienne says, “I was very angry that night. I should not have threatened you.”

Daenerys nods. “I was also angry. It was a difficult evening for both of us.”

“He is a good man. You are a good woman to have pardoned him.”

“Rhaegal would not have burned him, no matter how desperately he pleaded. I have been well-influenced by a good man we both know.” Daenerys' eyes warm.

Brienne smiles, a little sadly. Daenerys is stunning and powerful. Her thoughts turn back to another stunning and powerful person of her acquaintance. “You saved Ser Jaime's life, Daenerys. That was an honourable act, whatever you may think of the man.”

“I don't think I would've loved my father, had I ever known him. But he was still my blood. It will take some time.”

“I understand.”

Daenerys spoons up another bite of stew, then wipes her mouth. “We will be training with dragons soon. How does this make you feel?”

Brienne watches the liquid whirl in her bowl as she stirs. “I don't know.”

Daenerys smiles, takes another bite, swallows. “My dragons are my weapons, but I would like to learn something else.” She regards Brienne with seriousness. “I would like to relate to you as an equal. All of you have experience with weapons. I would like the same.” Now she almost grins. “I have seen you in battle. I will help you train with Viserion. You and he are similar in spirit: gentle and strong. In return, you will teach me a weapon I choose. We will ask for Jon's advice on this matter.”

Brienne grins back at Daenerys. “This is an intriguing prospect, Your Grace.” Teaching another woman to fight will be something to warm her in spring's chill, to burn out winter's cold ghosts.

“You are an intriguing woman, Brienne of Tarth.”

“Your Grace. Ser Jaime fights remarkably well with his left hand. He has led many armies. His knowledge is extensive, and would be useful to serve your goal.”

Daenerys hesitates for a moment, then nods.

*

Brienne's hands shake as she reaches out to Viserion. She and Jaime share a look of terrified excitement, while Jon and Daenerys look on with cautious smiles. When Brienne puts her hand on Viserion's side, he whuffs gently, nosing at her. His skin is warm; it should burn her, she should be scalded, but she isn't. She just feels warmed through all over.

When they take to the air, contentment turns to a pleasant terror melting in her gut. Every day they ride: from the spires of the stables to the ground below, then to the nearest tree, then far to the Northern coast. Brienne's skin is chapped raw from another level of saddle-soreness.

When Daenerys tells her that it is her turn to direct Viserion, moving to sit behind her, she feels oddly warm and afraid. And then, when Jon takes over from Dany, solid and still, she grows only more wary of the gentle sweet happiness of friendship.

*

The Queen's first blow with the arakh cuts Brienne's cheek. Dany insists on bandaging it herself. “You've taught me so much.”

Her touch is light, but sure.

*

The wedding ceremony and their trip to Stygai draw near. Today, Brienne and Jaime ride alone for the first time. Viserion and Rhaegal swoop through the sky, and their riders laugh with delight. Today is a ride without a destination, a celebration of their progress. They fly for the sheer thrill of it.

They're racing now; Brienne is winning, urging Jaime on with a grin; he might even be able to catch her. Rhaegal careens through the canopy and Jaime is grinning too, and she's never seen him so free in his joy.

It is short-lived.

A branch catches at him, wrenching him from Rhaegal's back. He flies through the air, then hangs for one terrible moment, suspended against the clear blue sky, before dropping, twisting and turning as he falls down, down, down. Brienne's mind is blank with the horror of it. It is strange, how joy can so quickly turn to fear.

Jaime falls, falls, falls, crashes against the ice cliffs, and then Rhaegal is there, swooping underneath to catch him, cradle him in his wing.

He doesn't move.

*

Jaime is broken, bloody, bruised, but alive.

While the maester tends his worst wounds, Dany and Jon prepare cloths, water, and bandages for Brienne, so she can tend to him. Dany is not physically affectionate with him; she no longer calls him Kingslayer, but she still does not touch him. Jon acknowledges his contribution to the war, is almost friendly, but there is none of the warm affection that exists between him and Daenerys.

*

Jaime sits beside her on his bed, turning his back to her so she can tend the injuries there. The air is smoky and warm from the fire, and sweet from the soaps of his bath. “Daenerys will be good with the arakh, and she's not even a Dothraki.”

Brienne opens a jar of sweet-smelling salve. “She was for a while, Ser Jaime.” Testing the salve's texture on her fingers, she says, “She was a khaleesi.” She lays a pile of bandages over her crossed legs. The worst of his injuries have been treated, but his back is still a mass of cuts, scrapes, and bruises. She begins with the worst of the cuts, daubing gently with a cloth, then rubbing in the ointment.

Jaime hisses, tensing for a moment, then relaxes. “She's very beautiful, and strong.” She knows he has that stupid grin again; she doesn't have to see his face to know it is still as stupid as it ever was.

“Yes.”

He looks back at her. He's still grinning. “Was that what happened that night?”

Brienne turns her attention to a new pot of cream. This one smells astringent, and has a slightly gritty texture. “Ser Jaime. Your training with Jon seems to be going well. You and Rhaegal are becoming friends.” She rubs the cream into the last few scrapes on his shoulder blades and the back of his neck.

He turns to her, baring the injuries on his chest and torso. “Lady Brienne. You have a remarkable talent for stating the obvious. He didn't burn me alive, so that's one thing.” A devilish light casts itself upon his stupid face. “Is it Jon, then?”

She scoops the cream with great focus.

His eyes are warm with amusement, and something dark she can't identify. “Oh, so it's both of them. The Maid of Tarth is the secret consort to the King and Queen.” He's smiling, but beneath her hands, his muscles are strangely tense. “She does things so scandalous she keeps them from the one who first gave her his closest secret.”

She keeps her eyes fixed firmly on his cuts. The coarse particles in the ointment abrade her fingertips.

He's chuckling now, low and warm. “There's no shame in it, Lady Brienne. Though if you had said--”

“I am no one's consort.” She is useful, her strength a polished blade, a weapon wielded in war. She grits her teeth, and steels herself to look at him.

The darkness in his eyes is gone, replaced with something lighter. “You could be mine, though I believe Jon and Daenerys would get jealous.”

Brienne scrubs the weals on his collarbone unnecessarily hard. “I will tell you, if it will stop this ridiculous conversation.”

“I am always ridiculous.”

“It was part of the blood pact,” she says, rubbing a smoother ointment back and forth across his collarbone, “to make physical contact with the King and Queen.”

“Physical contact.” He tilts his head back, and she applies the ointment to his neck. “You make that with all of us, every day, when we train.”

There are abrasions on his side that need to be attended to. She cleans them with the wine as she says, “A different kind of contact was necessary to seal the pact.” A new ointment for these, something cooling. It is thick and soft on her fingertips.

“Is that so?”

She is drawing her sword before a great battle. The blade is heavy and hot. “I had to kiss them.”

“Did you kiss me?”

The metal tastes sharp and sweet. “No.”

“Were you asked to?”

She does not look at his mouth. “No.”

“Would you have, if you were asked?”

“If it had been part of the blood pact.”

The blade swings, ringing, then is still.

“I don't want to imagine what kissing the dead feels like.”

Brienne shivers. “Cold.”

“Daenerys was nice and warm, then.” His eyes spark again, that mischief tinged with something darker.

She lets the scent of the cream fill her awareness with pine and mint. “Ser Jaime.”

He regards her with an inscrutable expression. “You'll give me the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“How is it that a dragon queen and a man who's died twice know more of you than I do?” he asks, with a sigh.

“You were dead. What was I to do?”

“I deserved equal treatment.” He grins. “You'll give me two.”

The skin of his shoulders is warm beneath her hands. “Two?”

“A kiss for each one they had.”

There is no defensive maneuver, no tactical strategy that will suffice. Her blade is not a useful weapon. She squeezes her eyes shut, presses her mouth to his. And then again.

His golden blade is sweet, the brightest brand. He doesn't, he can't-- she pulls back from him.

*

She knows, she wants, she needs.

*

Near sleep, her skin is a forge of strange weaponry.

Warm dragonglass.

Hot silver.

Molten gold.


	4. Dragonglass

Jon's numb unself hangs, alone, in black flecked with silver, steel, dragonglass, gold.

He feels and sees nothing; he feels and sees everything.

Then, a bright burst of agonising pain.

*

Jon's sense of taste returns first. His mouth is blood and salt and sweet. He smells something musky, floral. He opens his eyes. They are full of grit. He can see, he can taste, he can smell food and drink and feel his blankets underneath him. He is not in the nothing-world, in that blank space of his unself.

He is alive. Again.

Exhaustion pours into him, the unpaid debt of his unself. Tiredness seeps beyond his bones and blood, in some space as deep as where he had not-been. His chest aches. He reaches down and feels the scars from his traitorous men, and then bandages. Pain sears through him.

He is alive. The Night Queen had stabbed him with a frozen spear. She had put a hole in his chest; he had felt the ice run into his veins and freeze his heart. He had heard himself scream and his pain had been bright blue and so cold.

He is alive. He is alive, another piece of him carried off into that nothing-world. The Night Queen will meet his traitorous men and they will laugh at his honour and duty and how they mean nothing, when he is brought back again and again to serve the world's justice, and he will die by pieces, falling apart into nothing, when all he wants is a good clean quick death with a sword, a warrior's death, swift and true.

He is alive. It is another pinhole out of which his soul slowly leaks.

“Jon.” Dany is the fire blazing through that pinhole, concentrated light burning away pain. She is fire, enraged, but he sees the aching softness behind that anger. She is angry because she is in her grief. Her eyes are red-rimmed. “You're awake.”

“Dany.” He smiles at her. She is his Dany, though she had not wanted to be called that at first. It had reminded her of Viserys. But he is not her brother; his face warms, thinking of all the things they are to each other. Dany holds a cup of water to his lips. He drinks, and it feels as cold and sweet as the ice pool he and Ygritte found in their cave. It is as satisfying as seeing Dany wear her crown for the first time. It flows like cool light down his throat. He swallows and says, “How are you?”

Daenerys laughs, though there is darkness behind it. “How am I?” She takes his hand, and hers burns him in the most wonderful way. He welcomes the soft benediction of her touch. “You lie there after dying and coming back, and don't even think of yourself. All you can think to do is ask about me.” Jon shivers, and she shifts the furs to warm him. “In truth, I don't think I've felt so many different things in so little time. I spoke to my dragons on your behalf. I spoke to Drogo. I even thought of Viserys.”

Jon settles into the furs. They are warm and soft, and soothe him where the bandages are rough and abrade his wounds. He keeps Dany's hand in his. “So you played both Queen and Khaleesi then, all for me.” There's a warmth in him at their easy interplay. It is all so easy between them; when she burns too hot with impetuousness, he soothes her with solidity.

“I did my best, Jon Snow.” There's a teasing grin as she uses his full name. He is a Targaryen by blood, and Stark too, but he wants to keep Snow close, too. She had asked him, carefully, one night, if she could use that name for him, and he had asked if he could call her Dany. Something of their old lives, whatever the Realm wanted to name them. And so, when they are alone, they are Jon and Dany. Dany takes his other hand in hers and holds them both, warm and soft, real and solid. “When I saw you there – I felt as if one of my dragons died at the Night Queen's hand.” Her voice is very soft, and she rubs small circles into his hand, his palm, the tendons along his wrist. “I was angry. Brienne,” she adds, “was sad. I've never seen her so sad. She cried for that man, Jon. She cried for the man who slaughtered Aerys,” and here she grips his hands so tightly it hurts. He's grateful for the pain, because it means he can feel something other than the numbness of death. “She cried for the man who crippled your brother.” Her eyes are fierce. “Who would cry for a man like that? Why would such a woman cry for him?”

“Brienne is a good woman,” Jon says. “She is a warrior. She fights like a warrior and moves like a warrior and, more than likely, loves with the fierceness of a warrior--”

“She loves him,” Dany says. “I saw it when she looked at him.” She adjusts his furs with a perplexed look. “That child-crippler, that man without honour, she loves him – how is that possible?”

Jon hadn't thought about this complication, not yet. They had opened the gates and the Kingslayer had thrown himself into battle. After her injury, Brienne had pleaded with Jon to be the Kingslayer's right hand. She had appealed to Jon's sense of honour, when she had asked him to do what she could not. He had seen it then; her anguish was more than fear for all their lives. Jon had always leapt into one breach or another, only thinking of his duty; here that duty compelled him to fight with this man. If he did not, Brienne would grieve his loss; a friend, one of the greatest fighters he knew, would grieve. This had been overlain by thoughts of Dany. In Jon's place, she would feel a duty to serve the Realm. And yet there was another thought, another almost-duty: to let Jaime die. But Jon could not let the Realm die, and so he had plunged into battle. “I don't know, Dany. But I do know that we need to talk to him about your father, and my brother.”

Dany strokes his hair, and gives him more water to drink. She rises, closing the curtains more tightly against the spring chill. She stands by the window, silver hair illuminated by silver cloudlight. Her handprint leaves a mark as she presses her skin there. “I would see him in the Red Keep if I could, but it has not yet been rebuilt.”

“Sansa and Tyrion are making inroads.” Jon smiles. Tyrion treats Sansa better than any other man ever could. After Cersei's defeat, they ruled the South, while the winter war raged on in the north. Now, they still rule, and while Jon does not look forward to that part of his life, he knows he will have to, eventually. He will always have another duty. But he has, and will have, caring, as well. Ruling with Dany, the two will only enhance each other He sits up, leaning against the headboard. “When the Kingslayer's recovered, we can talk to him.”

“Before knowing you, Jon Snow, I would've thought to burn him and be done with it.” Dany sighs. “I still don't know how she can care for him so. I may have expressed these sentiments to her with my typical force that night. And I'm sure I will express them again when I speak to him in private.” She turns from the window, sits back down beside him on the bed.

Jon pulls up the furs around his shoulders. He grins at her. “You never know. He might like your anger as much as I do. But,” he adds, “I will take him to the godswood to speak with Bran.” He feels a cold harshness well up inside him. “If he does not speak the truth of what happened and why, he will feel Longclaw's bite.”

*

Jon strides through Winterfell to the godswood. Bran's tree sits, tall and solemn, bare but for a layer of spring frost. Jaime follows behind, and Jon does not stop to look back it him. He's brought enough food for Jaime to spend several days, all the supplies he may need for a stay of that length. A small part of Jon wishes Jaime's stay was longer. An eternity, in the lowest depths of all the hells of all the gods in Westeros and beyond. Jaime stops beside him. Jon says, “You're going to say something clever. The last time you and I spoke in Winterfell, you made it your life's work to say something clever. Here, there will be none of that. You'll not deflect from what you are or what you've done. You'll remember and experience and feel. And be true, Kingslayer. Or Longclaw will skin your lion pelt.”

Jaime looks at him, then the tree. He says only, "Yes." He looks small and weak, as if the North drained all the gold from his blood and replaced it with blackest ice. Truth that froze him with its necessity. For that, Jon feels a cool, distant gratitude.

They crawl into the heart of the tree, a space between roots large enough for both to sit. Jon touches the inner bark of the tree. Life beyond life thrums inside, the life of the tree, its sap and roots and bark, and the life of the man living inside it. Living and dying men pray at Bran's roots, feeding his soil with their spirit and blood. “Jon Snow. Jaime Lannister.”

Jaime says nothing. Jon knows he wants to say something clever. He is grinding his teeth with the strain of it.

“We are here, Bran,” Jon says, “Because the war is over and the Kingslayer and I have things we need to discuss with you.”

The bark of the tree glows green and white, and the air of the cave smells green with soft moss and sweet flowers. “The man who tried to kill me sits in my heart. He could kill me now with a twist of his hand. He could set wildfire upon my branches, take his sword to my bark. You do not, Jaime Lannister. Why?”

Jaime leans back against the wood. His eyes clench shut, his shoulders tense. “I was a man who wanted to kill. I was a man who would cripple anyone who would keep me from the woman I loved. In my mind, I went to war for her; in my heart, I went to war for her. There was no war other than for that woman. She was my right hand as much as I was, and anything in our way meant nothing to me.”

A cool wind blows through the cavern. Mosses glow in soft greens, illuminating Jaime's pained face. He swallows and continues. “When they took my hand, they cut out that part of me. All the corruption and filth and futility of my life: they strung it up in front of me. They strung it around my neck for me to wear like a twisted talisman, an amulet of misguided faith. To smell every day the stench of who I was and why. I was – I am – a disgust, a disgrace, a fool, a murderer. Cutting off my hand gave me the defilement I deserved, showed me who I am.”

The mosses dim and brighten, as if Bran breathes through them. “I was to be a knight, after playing at being a great lord to please my father. I would've left that post and travelled about the Seven Kingdoms, squiring to learn the trade. I could've joined you and Brienne.”

Jaime sucks in a breath.

The air is fragrant now, and grass begins to grow in the soil beneath where they sit; the mossy walls are full of colour and luminescence. “And yet,” Bran continues, “that hand made me as I am now, and saved King's Landing, and its loss made you as you are.”

“King's Landing?” Jon asks.

“Daenerys Targaryen will tell you soon,” Bran says.

Jon leaves Jaime in a stupor of pain and grief and anger and shame, leaves him with food and water and stillness. He waits for twilight. The moon lights the training yard, and Jon fights the ghosts of Jaime's dead hand until sweat stings his eyes.

*

Jon smells the familiar acidic tang of his battle-weary flesh. He and Brienne fought well today, and every part of him is sore. It was not like this with Ygritte; their tussling had turned to teasing intimacy. Nor is it this way with Dany, who has not learned the art of close combat. Jon knows of her interest. During battle, she mentioned to him that she wondered what it was like to fight on the ground. She loved her dragons, but she also wanted to hear of Jon's battles, his victories and his losses.

He soaps his hair. Brienne will be ideal for Dany to learn from, patient and unassuming and kind. She and Dany have more in common than they might think. What they both thought of their upcoming marriage was another question. He watched Brienne leave the training yard, something heavy and hurt in her eyes.

Jon doesn't know what to think. She has the Kingslayer, whatever the worth of the man. It is unquestionable that he cares for her, whether they want to face that reality or not. Jon knows her in the context of battle: fighting, training to fight, and talking about fighting. Sometimes he thinks fighting is all he knows about the world. Now, his tree-brother has blown open his world, has blown open his awareness of a cripple and a kingslayer, a man Brienne cares for. He pours water over his head to wash off the soap. Could Brienne come to care for Jon? Could Jon come to care for her? Did it even matter? Did it need to matter?

Both sets of his own parents had united under very different circumstances. Some said his true mother had been a naive, foolish child who let her passions destroy the Realm. Others said she had been a strong Northern woman, raped by a prince of silver hair and silver tongue. Jon knew the truth. He knew their feelings had been strong and fierce, but that such fierceness had also been a tragedy. Ned and Cat had been the stable, unassuming couple whose marriage began out of duty. Pain about his childhood had tainted Jon's understanding. Ned had not been honest with Cat, or him. A lie had fueled Cat's hatred of Jon, but that did not negate the reality that their marriage had been stable, solid. Jon could have that with Brienne. It would not mean abandoning or deceiving Dany.

Jon doesn't know what he wants, only that he will give Brienne the space to allow it to develop. She will need space, for she carries herself as if her only gift to the world is the raw power with which she can inhabit it. As if her sword is the only thing she can extend from her heart. Very well, then. They can begin out of duty. Their friendship began out of duty to the Realm; and if Brienne wants, it can become somethng more.

*

Rhaegal carries two riders for the first time. Jon grasps Rhaegal's spines as they lift high into the air. Jaime, thank the old gods and the new, is completely silent, stunned. Good. He needs stunning.

*

Rhaegal's bulk is solid and warm underneath him. He pats the creature and applies more soapy water to his scales. When he is clean, Jon applies the thick oil that always soothes the great beast. It was an exciting first ride, but Jon and Rhaegal are completely exhausted, ready to drop. Jon knows Rhaegal is grateful for any special treatment he receives. Jaime works alongside him, and in careful silence they wash the great beast. Jon finishes his work and turns to leave, beckoning Jaime to come with him. No matter how much Dany might want the man to burn, he won't leave him alone with the creature, not at this stage. They're not at all bonded; they've only started learning to ride. Jon does have to take a piss, though, and steps outside.

*

When Jaime falls from Rhaegal, a distant sense of shock ripples through Jon. It is like hearing that an old adversary is dead, a twisted kind of remembrance. He and Dany share a look. They know, now, the truth of the Kingslayer. They know why that name, a crown with hidden polish, pains Ser Jaime as his lost hand. Jon shares blood with Dany's father as well, heritage and bloodline, and he is a king, as she is a queen. Jon is too much Ned and Cat's son to ever go mad as Aerys did, and he knows the true cost of such madness. He understands the power of wildfire. In the godswood, there was a flash in him. It was a want, brief and sharp, for Jaime's left hand: a sacrifice in front of the family he had wronged. Gold blood, gold pain to feed Bran's soil. Ser Jaime hoarded his pain, gathered it alone in his heart, expressed only in fits and starts. But Jon saw it with Bran; he saw it reflected in Dany after Ser Jaime went to her. And now, as Ser Jaime lies broken on Rhaegal's back, he sees it in Brienne, her face open and wrought with grief.

*

Jon, Brienne and Dany stand outside Jaime's chambers. Jon hears the rustling and muttering of the maester at work. He passes Brienne the cloth and ointment. “When the maester finishes with Ser Jaime,” he says, “he'll need your help with his minor wounds.”

Brienne blanches. “I am unqualified for such duties.” Her face is white, but for two spots of pink on her cheeks. “I trained in swordplay, not medicine. My skills are minimal at best, not fit for one as injured as Ser Jaime.”

“This is hardly medicine, Brienne,” Dany says. “How many times have you bandaged yourself? Jon? Me? One man's skin is the same as any other. One man's wounds go bad like any other.” She passes Brienne creams and bandages. “Your skills are adequate for this task.”

Dany leaves Brienne then, stock still outside the door, staring at nothing. Jon follows behind, footfalls soft in the evening light streaming through the windows. Now he is certain. Let her attend to him. Ser Jaime has proven his worth as a dragonrider, but they have no real friendship. He and Dany know the facts of the man's misdeeds. They bore witness to his feelings and his silences. He fought well in war, but this current war is of a gentler sort, a battle of a more personal and intimate nature. They might not ever come to any true peace, easy or uneasy, no matter what fates befall them.


	5. Coal

The Red Woman of Asshai lights candles in the godswood. She lights candles by the thawing springs, she lights candles in the rebuilt sept; she lights fires in every fireplace she can find. There are not enough gods for her to call upon tonight. All her magic will mean nothing if these four will not join in a true marriage. She knows, with a painful certainty, that this will not be a true marriage. She knew as much as she watched them over the month that had passed. Some touched more than others; some cordially, some awkwardly, and some not at all.

She watches them now, filing into the training yard. It is not the usual space for a ceremony of marriage. There is no fanfare, no great feast. They wear their fighting and riding leathers, dirty from their daily lives. Tonight is a beginning; they will begin to show themselves to each other as they truly are. For that is how they need to relate to each other. Not as King, and Queen, and loyal subjects. Not as Kingslayer, as Warrior for the Dawn, as the twice resurrected. Not as the King in the North, or the Mother of Dragons. They must simply be themselves, sweaty, broken, bruised from their daily exertions. Real. For before their journey is done, they will be far more broken, far more bruised, and need to be far more real with each other to have any hope of survival.

They are bruised, scratched, and smudges of dust cover any skin incidentally bared. Jon's arm wraps around Dany's waist as they walk through the yard, and they lean against each other in their exhaustion. Jon is smiling at Dany, though his face has a tightness, and his eyes are as dark as they were when Melisandre brought him back for the first time. A darkness of resignation, a silent surrender, but with a certain touch of anger. Dany wraps her hand around Jon's arm, walks with the regality and poise of a determined queen. Her burden is the invisible crown she now shares with Jon, made of four vastly different materials, a mixture harrowing for the heart. Melisandre knows the King and Queen can bear its weight. She also knows they'd rather not.

Brienne and Jaime walk across the yard more slowly, though with no less determination. Their steps match each other, flowing one after the other like the waves of each of their homelands. Brienne does not let herself touch him; their hands do not touch, even their arms do not brush each other. Jaime looks at Brienne, then at Jon and Dany. His eyes colour with a sad stillness, crisp and pale green. Brienne watches Jaime watch them. Her eyes dart to his mouth for the quickest, quietest moment, then she looks away. She looks at Dany, and the set of her mouth softens. Then her eyes go to Jon, to the sword he wears on his hip, and that same softening falls upon her face. She looks to Jaime, who is watching her with a strange fear and longing. Melisandre sees a different shade of that fear reflected in Brienne's eyes, now palest blue.

They do not loathe each other, it seems. Rage and hate, terror and loyalty -- these are thick layers like crusts of dirt, or soil, or blood. The weathering of time, and the enforced closeness of training, eroded them away. Shame, guilt, self-hate swirl together in another thick crust, newly exposed. In time, perhaps the deepest layers will be revealed: gentleness, trust, warmth. For now, let the gods and the world of magic be content with what is here. Such connections must be enough.

It is midnight; the clear sky casts her dark face upon them. Candles line the training yard, their scent sweet in the cool spring air. Melisandre smells the sweet-sour metal of their weapons. Dany's arakh gleams, its curves dancing as she stops in front of Melisandre, the weapon swinging against her hip. Her dragons swoop down to greet them, before resuming their play elsewhere. Jaime wears Widow's Wail. He must rename it, by the old gods and the new. Whatever its name, it shines all the same, in the places it is not dirty from the day's training. Brienne has Oathkeeper at her hip. The pommel is worn, and Mel sees why: her habit, especially in this moment. She holds the pommel as if it is the only thing of Jaime she can possess. Longclaw was well-used in today's brawls; the blade shimmers with oil that seeps into new scratches .

They stand in front of her then, and she rearranges them: Jon beside Jaime, Jaime beside Dany, and Dany beside Brienne. They will all have to touch for the ceremony to work; better to get them used to it now, outside of fighting. She saw their begrudging closeness while they trained, though Dany never fought Jaime with her arakh, nor did she touch him if they rode on the same dragon. Anything accidental was withdrawn without a word, even an awkward one. It was as if some understanding had arisen between them, some barrier they had agreed never to cross. They would be crossing one tonight, though it would be very small. It was the same with Brienne and Jon, though they fought together and she did allow contact during dragon riding. Still, she kept herself apart from him. It was not with the same anger and resentment that Dany had towards Jaime, nor did it come with the agonising pull she seemed to feel towards the man whose sword she carried. Still, she held herself apart from Jon. That, too, would have to change.

Jon and Jaime were only taking their first tentative steps into becoming comrades; closer friendship might take longer than their journey in Stygai. But something had happened in the godswood: Jon's anger was muted; it had the exhausted resignation of a man who's spent too long burning for a cause. Jaime's shame turned him grey inside, grey of body and heart. Neither state was appropriate for marriage, but it was better than blind, crippling hatred, and blind, crippling self-hatred.

Melisandre knew their deeds, and after the ceremony ended, she would spend the long night reflecting on her own, the bad and the good, and how she could make her life right, burn away her wickedness, leaving only the ash of her purified soul. Her will was so small against that of all the gods and the world's brightest flame: dragons. She hoped to leave behind at least a small coal of goodness to blaze in her own pyre.

But now it is time, and so she speaks.

“The flames have shown me the truth of this marriage, though you will not believe it now. I ask you not to speak on what I have to say now, only listen.”

There are truths they need to hear from her; these are the most cutting, and most necessary. Far more brutal truths will come. To expose these, now, is to expose the potential for their light, within shadow.

She turns first to Jon. He is stiff beside Jaime, preparing for a blow that will not kill him, only cripple. He clasps his hands behind his back, looking only into Melisandre's eyes, as direct as when she brought him back the first time. Within his face so pale and drawn, the core of his eternal strength, all in his eyes.

“I have seen it in the flames, Jon Snow. You will come to care for the man who wanted to murder your brother.”

Jon doesn't react. He always was the stoic type, quiet and withdrawn. But something flickers in his face; the bone-deep weariness she knows he has felt all month makes itself known there, in the anger that sparks softly, then dies without breath.

“Daenerys Targaryen, you will come to care for the man who killed your father.”

Dany meets Melisandre's eyes, glaring. She looks at Jon and her eyes fill with sadness; she looks at Jaime and she draws herself up, the imperious queen Melisandre remembers. Melisandre also remembers the Queen's rage that night, as if she were on dragonback and he were an enemy in battle, fit to burn by her command. She had pressed her lips to his as if it were on a list of loathed tasks as part of her rule. Those feelings burn in her eyes, in the set of her face as she turns back to Melisandre, but she swallows back the flame. Her eyes still spark quietly, but a softness settles itself on her shoulders.

“Jaime Lannister, you will be taught another shade of humility by the former Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.”

The man is a grey weight; what shone in him is buried deep now, beneath the ice of shame so heavy his spine is taut with the tension of holding it. But veins of bright gold glitter in his eyes. When he looks at the Red Woman, they spark at her, some question about their own light. Jaime gives Jon a quick glance, and where there could be defiance and anger there is only the softness of remembrance, and a strange quiet smallness of gratitude, that his truths were brought to light with such ease, and he did not die for their exposure.

“And you, Brienne of Tarth, will see yourself as beautiful through the eyes of another beautiful woman.”

It is a superficial truth to give this woman, perhaps. But it is a truth always hidden from her, a truth she hides from herself, and when Mel had watched her over the month, she saw how she would not soften towards herself. Though she was a gentle spirit, the greatest gentleness she needed was her own, and that of others. For the new dragons would need her patience, her tolerance, her understanding. She is equally powerful in this marriage, there was no beauty but that which they all could bring to it together, and Brienne needs to understand this. There is a sharp fluttering in Brienne's throat, a widening of her eyes as they lock on Daenerys, and then quickly they are back on the Red Woman, and she is stoic once again, still, but for her eyes, and the smallest stiffening of the muscles in her neck.

The dragons have joined them once again, wheeling softly through the starlit sky. Drogon lands on a tower directly behind Melisandre with a crash. It is appropriate for the human and inhuman servants of light to join them tonight. When the resonance of the landing has faded into silence, Melisandre continues. “Passion is a restorative force,” she offers, her voice soft in the quiet night, “but you must all first be wholly broken. You are all wooden in your sympathies and dislikes. This union will burn them all away, cut where you do not think you need to be cut.” She draws out the weapons Dany and Brienne had used in the blood rite. “Dragonglass will shatter, silver will tarnish, gold will scratch; even Valyrian steel will succumb to rust of magical origin.”

The weapons are clean, oiled and polished, but Mel can still feel all the blood they had mixed together caked on the blades, thrumming and warm with life, like the coals of their union, full of potential. They only need an inciting spark. “This is an unusual marriage, and so the ceremony will be equally unusual.” She distributes the weapons – gold to Jaime, dragonglass to Jon, silver to Dany, and nods to Brienne to unsheathe Oathkeeper.

Melisandre leads them to the centre of the training yard, where a large brazier full of hot coals burns with strange colours: red, black, grey, azure, pink, gold, all the colors of the sigils of their houses. She directs them to lay their blades in the steaming coals. “You have all inflicted pain upon each other. Some hurts are larger than others, some have been inflicted without knowing. This ritual is a chance for each to feel the other's pain, in an acknowledgement of mutual suffering.” They withdraw the red-hot blades, then plunge them into the ice pool set beside the brazier. “Though some of you may not wish to touch, this is another way to seal the marriage, to commit the ceremony to the gods, and that is by fulfulling this rite of blood union.” Skeptical looks pass between them all. Melisandre ignores them and continues. Their skepticism, too, is part of the ritual. She gestures then, to the skin above their breastbones, where Jon and Jaime must cut each other, and every other pair. The men strip off their tunics immediately, and Dany her thin linen top, beneath which she wears a band around her breasts. Brienne avoids the issue entirely by awkwardly pulling her tunic in such a way to expose only her shoulders, collarbone, and the strip of skin above her breasts.

With Jon and Dany, Jaime's face is open, ashamed. He looks only at their skin when he cuts, then briefly in their eyes, the slightest touch as he withdraws the golden dagger. Jon's cuts of the other man are perfunctory, cold and detached. Dany slashes at Jaime with barely restrained fervor, and when she digs the blade in, he flinches. Jon's cuts of Dany are smooth and gentle, and he does so with an apologetic smile, shaded with something dark and sweet. As Dany reciprocates, he follows the path of her dagger with his eyes, his smile warm, approving.

Brienne's work is practiced, wielding Oathkeeper with delicacy as she gives Jon a smooth cut from his shoulder to his collarbone. She slices again, deftly, an apologetic look on her face. She repeats the cuts with Dany, though her cheeks seem slightly pinker. She is crimson under Jaime's longing and direct gaze, as he follows the path of her shaking hand with his eyes. He grins with sheer delight at her shallow cuts, though she withdraws as fast as she can. Jaime draws his golden dagger slowly down the curve of Brienne's neck, drops of bright blood following the blade. He flicks gently, sharply, a few cuts across her shoulders, drawing the blade slowly across her collarbone to scratch lightly there, before easing the point gently beneath where tunic meets skin.

When they are done, they are covered in bloody slashes, as if they have emerged from a great war, their eyes bright with some deep inner weariness, as though the ceremony has drawn more than blood from them. Despite this, the Red Woman feels in remarkably good spirits. “I do not wish for you to die of blood loss before Stygai. The final part of the ceremony is a healing ritual. You will wash and bandage your wounds. Use the water I have drawn for you, the linens that have been blessed, the healing oils that have been consecrated for this marriage. You belong to each other now: protectors, healers, companions. While you need not become anything more than friends, you should treat each other as wounded comrades would after a long, difficult battle. Tend to your wounds now, and let the night treat you as it may. Do not let anyone go without being treated by the other; it is important for the ritual that the healing is balanced.”

Jon and Jaime leave first, with a sullen reluctance. Dany has a soft, hidden smile for Brienne, and Brienne is remarkably stiff and serious, though her eyes are bright with some unnamed set of emotions.

Melisandre extinguishes the candles, cools the coals in the brazier. She gathers the implements of ceremony, rolling them neatly inside in a silk cloth edged with velvet, contemplating the path of her life. She was an arrogant fool, once. Age had not made her wise or good, only arrogant. Shireen had stripped that from her, the lovely child, but Melisandre could never take back what she, in her self-righteousness, did to Renly. Though it had brought Brienne back to her, so perhaps it was as necessary as the immolation of her arrogance.

The Red Woman would never know. The flames gave her only small shimmerings, brief sparks of what could be. Only ideas upon which to base questions of faith and blood. No black-and-white dictates to fuel a prideful heart. Melisandre's own pride and arrogance had been a stubborn rigidity that nearly cost Shireen her life. She would always feel pained about Shireen, no matter that the girl was alive and now happily ensconced in the Summer Isles with Davos and their family. It seemed only natural, then, for Melisandre to have dedicated herself to the Queen and the war. Winter had come early to Westeros, and Stannis and Melisandre had fought for many years in the North. Stannis had dedicated himself to the cause, and he, too, lost much of his pride. He had seen that there were more important matters than those curtailing his ambition. In the chaos of battle, he had sacrificed himself to save Brienne's life. Melisandre had not needed to sacrifice herself as payment for her wrongdoings, but she knew she had been wrong. She had failed, but she thanked that failure for bringing her path in line with the four who would bring dragons back to Westeros, to populate the world with light.

Now, letting the smoke and scent of union wash over her, she notes her preference for the flowing questions of light that she dreams in the coals. They give her a thousand paths. But they do not demand that she serve one or another. So she has chosen; she is a servant of candles, the sun, the brightness reflected in joy, all the beauty light remakes in its warm silence.

 


	6. Tarnish

Dany's feet are sticky. She does not think about what the stickiness could be. Blood, gore, dirt, sweat. Entrails from dead demons, dead dragons, dead souls. The dark fluid seeps into her boots. It reeks of rot. The black cobbles are thick with it, and the air is thick with its smell; even Dany's mind feels immersed in it. She trudges on, lungs filled with nauseating, eternal night. It is not fresh and cool like Winterfell in spring; she could vomit from the stench. It sinks down into her bones. Though every step fills her with revulsion, she must walk. That is what Melisandre had said when they left: that no matter how much they were repulsed by it, they must walk through the Shadow; that the eggs were to be found in its heart. 

Something new is in Dany's heart, a tiny flame that flickers within the shadow of her feelings. They had been married, bonded by blood and bandage and battle, hurting and healing and fighting. When she had touched him, the Kingslayer had been as warm as any other man; he had bled as any other, and in his eyes had been that disconcerting openness. Brienne had looked at Dany with anger and fear, as if afraid Dany's touch would break him. She had feared for his shame in Dany's hands. But Jaime had simply looked at Dany in silence. She knew his true name, the price he paid to defile the throne she served.

Dany might not care for him, or even desire him, but his skin had been warm and he had bled. His shame had been his own blood rite, on his knees before her throne or weak beneath her bandages. He had not looked at her as he dressed her wounds; he had been the battle-weary commander, Dany just another soldier, a broken thing to fix, perfunctorily.

She had seen otherwise as they spoke about Aerys, as he had implored her with his eyes. His skin had been warm. He had bled, and his eyes were full of shame. These were things she had known of him, as surely as she had known his reasons for pushing a little boy from a tower, for slaying a king. And Brienne had feared for the delicacy of his shame.

Brienne had taken to Dany's wounds first, her own touch tentative. Dany had been more than a soldier under Brienne's command: she had been a sister-in-arms, but had still grown self-conscious when she had dressed the wound over Dany's heart. When it was Dany's time to treat Brienne, there had been no hesitation in her, only concern for Brienne's comfort. Dragonriders and soldiers they may both be learning to be, but they both kept their gentle hearts closer. In Jon's grin had been this knowledge as he observed them both, in his detached approach to Jaime, in the way the two men had worked as quickly as they could, not looking at one another, the atmosphere strange and new. Dany had dressed Jon's wounds, like so many times before during the winter, but this was something new. They were married. He had dressed hers, and that led to healing of an altogether more intimate nature.

Now, as Dany walks through the broken city, the ceremony seems so long ago, and she wonders how such a place so dark tamed such creatures of light. The torches flicker. Brienne whirls; there are shapes behind them: demons and disembodied ghosts tinged with blood-red light. The demons plead, shame and fear in their eyes. The ancient city is filled with these beings, and as they reach the deepest shadow, they will solidify. They are the ghosts of guilt and shame and pain and blood and death, all the shame men could not purge from their souls. Their misdeeds and cruelties are manifested here, devastating to the mind. If you let them, they would drag you into the shadow; you would become them, and live in eternal agony.

Dany's stomach lurches more with each step. Their torches are holding long enough for Dany to see all their faces, sick and pale with their own nausea. She could empty her stomach over this whole city and it would not be enough to cleanse her of the revulsion she feels. She needs to get as far away as she can, to call Drogon and Rhaegal and Viserion back to them, leap on Drogon's back and fly somewhere else, anywhere else. But they had made a pact, a promise, a marriage in the eyes of the Red Woman; and this is a debt that Dany will pay. In her death, if she must, if it means Jon will live. He can rule the Seven Kingdoms without her; he is kind and stable. He will be a good king.

They plod further into the heart of the broken city. They light sweet candles to drive out the sickly carrion smell. The torches give out. Only their small points of light illuminate their way through the twisting passages, delineated by warped spindly towers of polished black glass, crumbling bricks of blood-red dirt, the same sticky film of offal overlaying everything they touch. Dany is dizzy and sick and sore in her heart, sore in her soul; her bowels clench and quiver, her stomach roils, her throat burns. She reaches for fresh water, for they dare not try to find water from a source as corrupted as the river Asshai. There, fish rot on their bones while they swim, and eight-eyed monstrosities with uncountable rows of teeth snap at their candles, their feet, anything, simply because they are alive and uncorruptable.

Brienne puts a hand on Dany's arm. “Daenerys,” she says, her face sickly and wan, her voice hoarse, “Perhaps we should think about turning back.”

Jaime stops, turning to Brienne. “Dany is the Queen. She is leading us. We should keep on. What else are we to do? We've come so far.”

“We could go to Valyria,” Jon offers. “Not where the dragons were tamed, but where the last dragon eggs were seen. We'd have to face greyscale, but we can cover up against that. This,” he gestures to the space around them, “this, whatever it is, that's making us sick,” and now Dany notices Jon's face is grey, splotched red with almost-fever, “it seems to be getting worse, the farther we go. I say we go back. For our own safety.”

Brienne nods. “We should turn back. I would; if not for my own safety, then for the safety of my King and Queen.”

Dany swallows down bile. She steadies her shaking hands, holds herself, though it's too humid for her to be feeling so bleakly cold. “We're almost near the centre now. I think,” and here she holds Jaime's gaze for a moment, “Ser Jaime is right. We should press on. Why give up when we've come so far? We should've turned back long ago.”

Anger flickers in Jon's eyes, only to be replaced with muted acceptance, and the same nausea Dany feels. Brienne nods, then, though Dany can tell the effort to agree is painful for her. And so, despite their sickness, they continue on.

Dany must continue. Her dragons would implore her. Jon would want to see her with a dragon egg. She wants to see him with one himself. Brienne would offer Dany the strength of her back to lean against. Ser Jaime would at least offer his fealty in fear and shame, casting himself down at her feet. If she went to the Night Lands now, Drogo would ask why, and tell her that the Night Lands needed her brightness in the living world to give them life. Viserys would tell her she had no need to feast with him in death, and sweet Ser Jorah would kiss her forehead and beg her to return to life, that his role was to serve her in death, and hers was to serve the Realm in life.

But now, she cannot serve. She is in blackness, in sickness, and the more she fights it the sicker she feels. The blackness in her head is all-consuming. They reach the centre of the shadow, and all is black swirling around her, and her candle flickers, the light softens, dims, flickers again, finally dimming one last time, and she falls, caught in three pairs of arms, but her mind slips away, down, down into that deepest sickness of shadow.

*

Dany wakes.

In a night without night, in a cold without cold, she is without form she can use to fight. For there is something she must fight against, she is sure of it. If her dragons were with her, she could burn the presence that does not exist in front of her, the nothing without nothing that makes her feel so cold and alone.

But she cannot. She is Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, and yet her blood is not hot enough to burn away this fear.

She feels form returning to her body: even her blood takes back its fire, though it is dulled. There is nothing before her but black and grey, and under her feet she sees thick smoke. It billows from underneath her feet to surround her ankles, her legs, stopping at her waist, thickening until she is wading through waist-deep sludge, stinking of ash.

This is not the House of the Undying; her dragons are not trapped, they are safe in Winterfell. She has no reason to fear. She is Daenerys Targaryen, and whatever this is, she will face it with strength, as she has faced everything else. Her nausea and sickness are still with her, part of the ash, floating outside her body in a thick miasma, something she breathes in, feels soaking into her pores, into her blood. It is worse than a sickness cured with soup and sleep; there is no poison, no purgative that will rid her of this. She knows this as surely as she knew Ser Jorah's feelings for her before he died, as she knows her rule of Westeros is right and good and true, that she was destined to come into her power, that her power is hers.

She is in the formless smoke without a path, the ash at her hips still filling her nostrils with its stench, staining her skin, turning the white silk dress she wears grey. She wore a similar dress when was married the first time, so young. She was only Dany then, in Viserys' eyes. Her birth amidst a storm, her heritage, they did not elevate her above him; he was the rightful ruler of Westeros. It was his throne, not hers. But Jorah was there, and he loved her, advised her, guided her through those first terrible weeks, when everything was new.

He is there to guide her now, gliding through the smoke, moving as gracefully as he had on horseback. But there is no deference in his eyes, no softness, no empathy or ease. His eyes are black and full of hatred, and his hands are tight around her wrists.

“There's no time to waste, Dany.” He speaks in Viserys' voice. She sees the ghosts of Essos, the many she has burned, the Dothraki Sea, feels hot horse-blood choke her throat, drowning her, and finally the creature that is not Jorah and not Viserys throws her down.

She is in the throne room of the Red Keep, as she has always wanted. Mirri Maz Duur, Drogo, and Jorah surround her. “You,” not-Jorah says, tone heavy with sarcasm, “have a gentle heart, Princess.” The witch and the creature who is not Drogo laugh.

The witch says, “You are a foolish child. Your heart is not gentle; it is afraid. The twisted child I pulled from you is more you than gentleness will ever be.”

Daenerys feels her face buffeted by the beating wings of her twisted demon-child, though she cannot see him. Not-Drogo holds her invisible child in his arms. He raises himself up above her, in all his dark strength. “You are not fit to sit the iron chair.”

Not-Jorah speaks again. “Your arrogance is your failure. As long as you desire to control the world, your desire will control you.” Viserys speaks through him, again. “You are a Targaryen, with that sense of entitlement the name brings you.”

The witch adds, “You burnt me. But you cannot burn everything because you believe your way is the only way. You are not always right.”

The creatures lose form, their expressions melting off their faces, their bodies turning into the same ashy smoke that surrounds Dany. Eventually the smoke solidifies above the Iron Throne, and takes shape upon it. A small girl-child with silver hair sits on the Iron Throne, fists covered in blood as she clenches its blades. Her face is contorted with rage. The smoke surrounding the Iron Throne coalesces, shaping into massive dark grey creatures, clay pots.

The creatures-- dragons like none she has ever seen-- open their jaws and ignite the pots. Their flames, black and poisonous, combine with the green liquid to make a sickly putrid flame that engulfs the throne. The girl screams, angry, defiant, then afraid, and she burns and burns and burns. Even her tears are green, and they wet the ash of her body as she disintegrates. The throne melts underneath her, and her blood is a hot green river that boils within the melted slag.

Dany's blood, too, is a hot green river, her heart a hot coal, forcing her flame-blood through her veins. Her skin burns. She is fire, too much fire. She will burn as her girl-self did, and it will be as it needs to be, for she is no Queen. She is only fit to burn as her father did, and never rise again from the ashes. Hot needles brand her skin; she is turning grey, then black, and her skin is hardening. She bites her lip bloody with the agony of it, as her skin begins to give birth to dragon scales, as tiny nubs of wings grow on her back. She should die this way, her vulnerability so well-armoured. Her fear controlled and directed in the will of her dragonfire. Her heart an angry coal bursting into flame with the kindling of power. She is curled on the ground now, a fetal dragon in the Shadow's womb. She will be tamed, and in her taming, she will die.

Something cool touches her cheek. A hand, smooth and soft. An ocean cold enough to quench wildfire.

“Dany?” Brienne's voice: a quiet, flowing river.

“She's dead, Brienne. Leave her.” Jaime. Soft, sad; drops of autumnal rain.

“Ser Jaime.” Jon, hard flakes of snow, cold ice battering against her awareness. “She lives. We're here. We're in her shadow. If she were dead, we couldn't be here.”

Her neck is thick with scales. Her throat constricts with her armor. It is the whip of her grief made new. She finds her voice despite it. “I'm here.”

They kneel down before her. She is not their queen, and never deserved to be, but still they kneel. The flat of Brienne's blade is cool and feels soft where it brushes against Dany's side, scraping at the scales. They fall, revealing unblemished skin. Brienne stands abruptly, unsheathes her sword. “Your Grace.”

Dany nods.

Oathkeeper slides underneath Dany's scales and the dragonskin loosens, peeling away from Dany's flesh with a wet sound. The pain is bright and red, and she clings to it. It flares brightest when Brienne slices the buds from her shoulders. The skin underneath is tender and painful, but the metal soothes as much as it hurts. 

Jon sifts through the ash and slag of the melted throne, and the small, soft sound of a child is heard as he moves towards them, carrying a small bundle in his arms. “She was holding something.” He passes it to Jaime. “Looks like some kind of cream.”

The child breathes, weakly, but there is a warm light in her eyes now. What anger filled them has drained away, and there is only the softness of peace. Dany takes the child, lays her on the ground. She takes the cream from Jaime, tests it on her skin. It soothes the hurt, warm and cold. She passes it back to Jaime. He gives her a questioning look. “Brienne gave me her sword, Jon found me this child,” she says, “and I want you to give me this.”

His fist clenches for the briefest moment, and when his eyes touch hers, they are softly reluctant. She looks at him, steady and calm, until he looks away. He killed a king. He crippled a child. He had been small and weak before her, and she did not order him to burn. And now, he will not kill her; she is small and weak before him and he will not kill her. She must make what she can from this moment. She turns her back to him, baring the wounds of her almost-wings. He holds himself away from her. “I'm sorry.” The cream is soft on her skin, and she feels only the slightest brush of his fingertips, the merest touch of his stump.

Jon is sitting in front of her, brushing the child's hair back from her face, watching as she falls into deep sleep. He looks up at Dany and Jaime, and takes Dany's hand in both of his. Brienne sits beside him, and takes Dany's other hand. They sit together in the cool quiet, watching as Jaime silently spreads cream on Dany's skin, and the child sleeps beside them.

Dany turns to Jaime, exposing her neck. The whip that became armor loosens around her throat. The child's breathing slows, and her skin begins to glow; she draws her knees to her chest and curls inside herself. She is breathing so slowly that it is barely perceptible, a whisper that fades into the darkness. But the child is no darkness; her body glows with a sparkling flame, and Dany's eyes burn with fiery tears. When Dany's vision returns, the child is gone, replaced by four dragon eggs. They are warm in her arms, as if molten metal and flowing volcanic glass have solidified to bring them life. She gathers them in the folds of her dress, and steps from the world of her shadow, Jon's arms around her, Jaime and Brienne on each side. She is weak and exhausted, but on her skin rests a soft, cool light.


	7. Rust

Brienne looks up into a black sky, a black sun, a black moon. If black had different shades, then here was its spectrum fully expressed, in all shades of black available in the world. She'd never known it to have so many different colours, that colour without colour. She thinks of Drogon and his great warm weight, his black and red bulk, the dark grey in the Stark sigil, the black and red of Dany's family name. These remembrances should comfort her; they are blacks that warm her, but here is only a blackness of death, cold and aloneness. The black of her shadow.

All of this black exists within a circular structure, walled with black stone and black wood. The sharp press of gravel and glass makes itself felt even beneath her heavy armour. Her bowels clench with the sickening awareness that it will not protect her, despite its thickness. She is on her hands and knees, and the black glass cuts her palms, leaving tiny scratches wherever it touches. Her blood does not flow red; there is no relief for her eyes from the unrelenting darkness. And if she cannot escape, there will be no relief for the rest of her.

There was no relief for any of them, it would seem. Dany fell sick first, collapsing into unconsciousness, and they did all they could to try to revive her. She convulsed, shaking on ground wet with the offal of so many unknown enemies, her silent agony a scream heard with painful clarity by Brienne's heart. Even as Dany was covered in blood, dirt, and vomit, she was still beautiful. There was still a flame in her that would endure, that must endure. They caught her as she fell to the ground, such a small weight, such a large flame. But there was no flame, not her dragons, not even Dany's own, that would bring her back. Jon was grey with shock and his own sickness. His eyes found Jaime's and something new passed between them; they looked to Dany as they held her, both their faces bleak with terror.

And now Brienne has succumbed. She carried Dany with Jon and Jaime, a limp weight in her arms that became heavier and heavier as the darkness grew and her candle dimmed, finally flickering out as she collapsed on the cold stone, wet with unbearable stench, vomiting black bile and blood. The light of Jaime's green eyes dimmed in her sight as he knelt before her, supporting her weight, and she thought she knew why he did not scream for her. It was the same reason Jon did not scream for Dany. There was no point. The shadow would use their screams and pain to fuel its power. Their bleak fear would only add to its strength. So in Jaime's eyes, and Jon's, she saw only a sadness: with her death, she would kill them. There was no blood rite strong enough to beat back this blackness. This was a death beyond death.

If she is in a death beyond death, then it is a world of her greatest aloneness. There's a rusty, sticky taste in her mouth, and grey grit films her vision. She tries to push herself to her feet. The circular structure is a fighting pit: black walls, black stone, black wood, black floor. Whatever battle she will face here, it will be worse for her than the bear pit ever was, and she must escape. At least they gave her Oathkeeper, and spared her the indignity of a wooden sword.

Brienne tries again to rise to her feet. She moves the barest inch upwards. Her armour is a dead weight on her body. It is heaviest lead, and she can barely rise. But she will rise. She has always risen. She is ugly and it does not matter, for no one sees her here. She is useful and she can put her strength to use in getting up, up, up. She must. She pushes herself up with an agonising effort, steps forward to the middle of the pit, each footfall scratching through the glass with its weight, every muscle in her body straining. Sweat pours down her face within the first few steps. If she can only make it to the tunnel outwards, she will be able to get out. Every step is an eternity. There is no candle to light her path. There is no torch, no burning Valyrian sword or glittering golden knife to lead her home. No glass shot from the heart of a burning mountain. No dragonfire from Viserion's heart to warm her. There is only the skin of her self-protectiveness given infinite weight, dragging her down. She walks. She trudges. She slides.

She should not feel the glass cutting her feet through her heavy boots, but she does. Her blood feels only like extra weight on her feet with its pain. It cuts her feet with brutal efficiency, and blood flows from her, through her boots, pooling from her in black floods that surround her as she walks. The floods are pools, and they flow upward from the stone, combining with the glass into solid forms, forms of blood and shadow and darkness. They wield swords of blood and shadow and dark grey stone.

One names itself self-righteousness, the other rigidity, the next duty, the next seriousness, then self-sacrifice, and all have eyes like voids. In the dullness of her fear she wonders why one does not have Renly's face, for she saw his brother's once, in the face of a very different shadow. She was a fool to have ever cared for Renly, and the shadows are only telling her what is true. She is a fool to throw her life away in pursuit of some arbitrary rightness, to carry the sword of a man who cannot care for her, to believe that she can help bring magic to the world. These are dreams of girls before they are crippled by their own failure, before they know the great price paid for delicacy of feeling, and the greater price extorted to keep such feelings close.

“Fool,” they call her. “Naive, rigid fool.” Their hands of smoke reach for her. “If you would sacrifice so much of yourself for others, then let your martyrdom be your end.” They grasp at her heart, her body, her face, and she raises Oathkeeper high to slice at them, but her armour is so heavy; she can only make her sword a shield, it can only be her wall, but even her wall will not protect her. They know. “When you fought at the Wall, you did not realise your own. Now you must.”

She slices pitifully at them, even as they grow closer to her heart. But then they grasp her sword, twisting it painfully from her, and she is bare and defenceless before them and she can only watch.

Oathkeeper cracks slowly, with blackest rust, in spiderweb formations that run down its once-silver surface, corroding the metal with black, evil-smelling filth; even the rubies on the pommel turn black. The lion's mane, once gold, turns dark grey, the outer surfaces crumbling and stinking of mould. The pommel turns to dust, a stinking cloud that fills her lungs with fungus. The black hands hold Brienne in place; she cannot move, she cannot run; she is surrounded by blood and glass and darkness. They tear at her armour, cracking it, rusting it, dissolving it with acid and her own blood. She is left wearing only the thinnest underclothes.

She can only watch as the black blade that once was Jaime's sword shatters into shards that pierce and slice and burn with aching agony into the depths of her heart. She is not dead; she is alive to feel this pain, this damage of her heart so deep, and every hand of painful self-discipline and morality and self-righteous justification of belief and rigid seriousness holds her down as the pieces stab her again and again and again. She is meant to be alive, the shadows tell her; she is meant to feel the pain of her flaws, she is meant to experience the consequences of her self-protectiveness, her defensiveness, her rigidity. It is too agonising for her tears; she can only scream. Her voice echoes long and loud through the pit, and even its expression is not enough to dull the pain. She is so cold, and so broken, and so alone. Blood flows in black runnels from the holes in her chest, and each hand that claws at her leaves trails of bitter blue frostbite in its wake.

And then, she is not alone. Longclaw slashes at the hands that hold her, beats back the shadows, and they dissolve under the power of the wolf pommel, the gleaming blue eyes, the fierce white pelt. Hands are on her chest, stemming the flow of blood. She is clinging to what little consciousness has not been overtaken by the weight of black blood in her body pooling around her, the pain of the shards in her chest. Hands are under her head, supporting her. Hands are under her back, lifting her. “Brienne--”

“It's too late, Jaime.” Dany's voice is soft, cold, sweet silver. “She's been stabbed so many times. Anything we do won't be enough.”

Jon resheathes his sword, black and glowing with incorporeal blood. “We're in her world, not in ours, not in Westeros. Whatever she thinks can be, can be. We saved you, Dany; we can save her. It is our duty.”

“Oathkeeper,” Brienne says, throat full of needles of pain. Even speaking hurts. “Jaime.” She coughs, and blood flows from her mouth and chest. “It cracked, it shattered, it killed me.”

Jaime looks at her bleakly now, his eyes shattered like his sword, a man full in his grief, for she has died, and he has killed her. But she is alive, and perhaps they can save her. Dany presses her hand to Brienne's chest. Her jaw is set with rage. “Kingslayer,” she says. “You did not kill another king, but your sword has killed Brienne. You must save her.”

“Yes.” Jaime reaches out his hand, black with Brienne's blood. “I'm sorry.” He reaches into her wounds. Jon does the same. The pain is beyond pain. They are inside her, and she is in agony, and they are pulling something from her, and all is metal and hot and light and blood, and Dany is holding her as she falls back from the force of the pain and blacks out into a grey muzziness that feels more healing than the black of shadow.

Brienne emerges slowly from her greyness to find Dany's fingers on her cheek, streaking her face with blood, red and pure, and her pain is not the pain of shadow but the pain of life. Oathkeeper is in pieces beside her and her chest is bloody and she hurts but she is alive. Dany's hand is warm, so warm on her face and the other on her shoulders, near to burning. Dany gathers the pieces of broken sword. Jaime has his golden dagger, Jon his dragonglass, Dany her silver knife. The shadows are a steaming pit of fire from Dany's burning hands. They cast their weapons into the burning pit. It bubbles and boils and steams and smells of sweetness and light and life. Dany reaches in and withdraws a sword, glittering Valyrian steel shot through with golden shimmering strands, silver edges, flecks of dragonglass that stud the pommel and catch the light. Armour of the same design and quality follows, and Brienne wears them both.

Oathkeeper is hot and whole in the ashes of the shadows, and Brienne straps it to her hip with her new sword. Something else is nestled in the ashes too, four oval objects, lightly scaled, black, silver, gold, grey, and their surfaces ripple with internal life and heat. With effort, Brienne collects them in her arms and stands. She strides away from her shadow, and the echo of her steps is joined by that of three others. She is not alone.


	8. Shatter

Jon walks alone, the sky above him blank and white. His black shadow is a white plain. Ice and shadow stretch into the horizon in flat voids of white under his feet. He might as well be blind, with such blankness before him. The empty reflection of his life. Blankness cools his mind, freezing it into nothing. He can't feel his hands, feet, or face. His skin is cold and empty. Even the softness of his thick furs does not touch him. Every part of him is numb. Every part of him is black with frostbite.

A blizzard of ice rushes into the empty space of his heart. It is a nothingness that fills with frozen white dust. Somehow he can feel the cold. He is as aware of it as he was of the numbness of his unself in death. It is an awareness without awareness. It freezes him, every feeling without feeling.

Cold surrounds him. All the enemies of his broken, empty, frozen heart will come to greet him, and bring him their gifts of pain. All those he has cared for will come to greet him, and share with him the vast cold self of his emptiness.Ygritte is only the first. She should not be an enemy, and yet she is.

She is still as beautiful as she was when he met her; when he swung his sword to miss her neck; when they battled and bickered; when they found the cave; when she died in his arms. Her eyes are as white as the whiteness in him. He does not have to touch her to know her skin will burn him with its blank ice. Her frozen arrows will impale him. They will shatter, never melting in his blood. Ygritte's hair is the only colour, and it scars him with its brightness. Her red is meant to make him bleed, but his brain bleeds only the same whiteness into his vision as the sky, the air, the ground all around him.

Inside him is nothing.

Ygritte has always known what was in him.

“You know nothing.” Her voice is blood without blood. Hoarse, cutting, and as red as her hair. Red as she fires a flurry of arrows at him. They wing past his ears; he hears the sound of their feathers; he flinches and dives. None pierce him, for what can pierce a creature with a will and heart and body so insubstantial?

She laughs.

From the cloud of white emerges Jeor Mormont. Black hands grasp at Jon. The almost-father of his dead self has cold, undead-blue eyes that cut him like Ygritte's hair. They are not wise like Brienne's eyes, and have no incandescence. They are hard bits of false sky that cut him from the inside. They burn him nearly blind.

“You learned to lead with a blank heart. You gave your men nothing to follow. They killed a man who could never be a man, for he was a ghost of himself.” Mormont's hands cling to his wrists. Mormont drags him along the white plain, drags him into the whiteness of his emptiness, pulls him into a circle of men.

The traitors of the Night's Watch surround him. They cut him again with their knives of snow, smiling. His scars ache with a new cold; not the cold of betrayal, but a cold from within, from the knowledge that he gave them all the nothingness they used to forge their weapons. When he bleeds it is white. He cannot see it, only feel how its cold flows from his skin and into the snow, the sky, the ice, adding to the great emptiness of his world.

“You are still a traitor. You will always be a traitor.” Betraying him was a kindness they paid to his empty heart. A man who is nothing has nothing to rule with, and their knives were simply telling him a truth he already knew. Frostbite of the heart is the truest kind of cold.

A gust of icy wind envelops him. Rhaegar and Lyanna ride deformed dragons above him, with frozen wings that swoop over him, and claws of snow crystals that bite at his flesh.

“Our son, the Prince of Nothing.” The dragons open their jaws, spewing out blue ice that stabs through every pore of him. Their flames are a frozen river, his heritage a bleakness in the face of his pointless life. What good is it to be a Targaryen if your fate is only to die, over and over, bit by bit, in body, mind, soul, heart, until you are simply part of the world's great meaninglessness?

He spins to face them, Ygritte and Olly, Rhaegar and Lyanna and their twisted beasts, but they are gone, and only their words echo over the plain of ice he finds himself walking across. All around him is white, a white nothingness of sky and snow so vast it is his own darkness. He strains his eyes, his mind, his heart, to discern some forms, some life or warmth, but there is nothing. He is alone and lost. He has always been lost. In Winterfell, as a boy, he thought the Wall could be his home; he was lost in their great feasts, in his family who could only try to be family. At the Wall, battles and fear and searching within for something to live for, some meaning in life in the face of learning of that which could not truly die. All the battles with men who needed him, men who despised him, men who were indifferent to him. His battles, so many battles he has fought, his struggles, his triumphs and fears and flaws, it is all nothing, it means nothing. The pinpricks in his soul are gaping holes, his numb unself has returned, and he feels the cold white plain reaching into his heart, filling him with its ice. His vision is fading with the snow that falls, first white flakes, then grey, then black bits of ice that blind him. He is so cold, and there is nothing, and he means nothing. Sleep would be a welcome nothingness before death. He stretches out in the white abyss to welcome it. His eyes begin to close. The King in the North has found a cold that has bested even him.

Gold flashes in his vision, then bright green eyes that warm him. Jaime stands above him. His voice is soft, pained. “He'll die of the cold, Dany. If he's still breathing, he won't be soon. It's too cold here. He'll freeze to death. If that doesn't happen, frostbite will take his hands and feet, the flesh will go bad; it won't be a good death. I'd take the sleep of winter over the pain of dying flesh.”

“He is cold, but we are still warm. And if he desires warmth, we can give him his desire,” Dany says. She is so full of fire, his beautiful Queen. He needs her flames now, the sweet brightness of her heart's fire. Dany takes his hand. It is a violent surge of flame. He is the Night King and she has consigned him to burn with her blood; her dragons have slaughtered him and he is in the Night Lands of her first husband; he is burning on a dragonlit pyre with Drogo. He is a ghost in his nothing-world, but Dany is burning him back into life with the fire of her need. Brienne takes his other hand, and it is warm against his, soothing his frozen skin. It is the imprint of her warmth on Longclaw's pommel after she trains with it; the solid warmth of her body as she spars with him; the easy gentleness as they sit together in the dining hall. Still, real, consistent, stable. It is the warmth of her eyes as she pleaded with him to help Jaime, the fire in her earnestness of being. Dany and Brienne are both so warm, their flesh pink with life and health, their bodies solid, their furs soft against Jon's frozen skin.

Jon hisses as the frostbite in his palms dissolves. His flesh turns from black to pink with a pain sharper than any battle wound. It is a pain real and true that has his blood in it, blood that can fill the pinpricks in his soul. But in his chest, his heart, is a coldness his warm painful blood cannot touch. An emptiness that no amount of conviction or honour or duty or battle-lust can fulfill. It is so cold, and so alone. It hangs in a nothing-world of its own-- its own unself. Brienne and Dany cannot burn his unself with the flames of their hearts.

But Jaime's fire is different; Jaime should not be so apologetic for his difference, but that is how he looks now, as he reaches out to Jon with his maimed arm.

“I'm sorry,” Jaime says, and presses his stump to Jon's chest. Its warmth is tentative, kindling with a slowness and unease, but it is still warm. Jon's chest is black ice that cracks and splinters under the pressure of Jaime's stump. Each piece falls away, sliding across the white plain of ice, shattering into flakes of white. Where his heart of flesh should be, there is only an icicle, frozen and black. With his left hand, Jaime reaches into the gaping hole in Jon's chest. He withdraws the icicle, and there is a sharp crack. Jon feels cold beyond cold, deep within his blood, in his lungs, and he breathes through the pain. Jaime balances Jon's icicle of a heart on his stump. He raises Widow's Wail, bringing it down upon the black ice. What was once Jon's heart breaks into four pieces, skittering across the frozen waste.

When Jon can breathe again, he feels blood moving through him. It is warm and true, hot and real, something unfrozen. He feels his unself thawing. The pieces of what once was his heart lie quiescent on the ice, now round and solid, shiny and scaled. Dany's and Brienne's and Jaime's fires glow within them; dragons sleep inside them. Jon wraps the glittering eggs into his cloak. They thrum with their inner warmth, and so does he. The eggs have melted a tunnel into the ice, which glows with light that leads them from Jon's shadow world. Dany and Brienne are still holding his hands, and Jaime walks behind him.

Jon is very warm.


	9. Scratch

Jaime burns.

The Iron Throne stands high before him, and from within it burns him. From without it bleeds, the sharp steel flowing red, dripping in pools and streams and rivers, flowing in a great red waterfall down the steps only to stop at his feet, to burn them through with its darkness.

He does not need the red darkness of the throne. He has his own. His darkness is another red: the red of his House; the red of all the blood he's shed; the red of his father's coldness and rage; the red of his brother's caring and fear; the red of his sister's control and lust. It lights him from within.

Jaime clenches his fists with the pain.

He looks down.

He has two hands.

There is no greater pain: that in this world of red, he has two hands. When he is burnt away by fire or dragonfire or wildfire, he will go to whatever afterlife there may be with only one. He will never again feel cool Valyrian steel beneath his right palm.

But now he has two hands, and wonders what world this must be, that it would set such horror upon him.

In front of him is a greater horror: Aerys on the throne, Tywin and Cersei at his side. They beckon him forward. He would speak, but they have taken all his words from him.

All his life, they have taken his words from him. Aerys burnt Jaime's throat with secrets; Tywin sucked away Jaime's cleverness with silence; Cersei stole _how_ and _why_ with her mouth.

And now, they take even his body. Jaime moves without his own volition, and there he kneels in front of his dead king, his dead father, his dead sister, in a pool of flaming blood. And then he is dead himself of the pain, for Tywin and Cersei bear Widow's Wail down upon his left wrist, and he has no words to give shape to his scream.

He is still screaming when Aerys burns his right hand, and he watches as it flames green with wildfire.

He watches as wildfire engulfs the Iron Throne, as Aerys smiles, as Tywin and Cersei hold their swords dripping with red blood and his world turns hot and green.

Jaime burns.

All the world is green light.

He is kneeling, still, and watches his wrists drip red into green flame.

He watches the flames as they consume him.

He watches as a silver blade flies into the fire, as a dragonglass dagger melts from black to orange, as a Valyrian steel sword sparks in waves of brilliant colour.

Jon and Brienne take Jaime by the elbows, bear him up, away from the throne, to the green flame Dany has guided into a pit. The metals of their blades have melted, and the hand that Aerys took burns in the pit, ash and bone. Dany is stirring the mixture. She holds his left hand where it was cut, and dips it in the liquid to form a cast, which solidifies. She dips again to form another, and passes one to Brienne, one to Jon. Jaime hisses as they attach them to his wrists.

When the pit is clean of liquid metal, each fingerbone of his hand is left, but now something Aerys took from him will be his again, in a new form.

When these dragons are born, they will never burn anyone to ash.

His new hands are heavy and warm with their burden, but they do not burn.

When he climbs into the tunnel Dany burnt into the ground, Jaime feels the weight of fire lift from him.

His world is newly red; Dany has crafted it for him. His world is newly green; Jon and Brienne have made it his spring.


	10. Smooth

Jon wakes to the sound of the wind, whistling loud and cold in his ears. Cold surrounds him. It is a damp blanket, soaking into the skin on his arms and the back of his neck.

Not everything near him is so cold. A warm weight slumps against him. Smooth braids brush against his cheeks. The fine bones of Dany's hands, elbows, spine, ribs stab into him. He sucks in a breath at their sharpness, and his pain. Dany does not wake. She does not move, only shudders with each breath. The force of her breathing pushes Jon back against something smooth and warm.

He opens his eyes. The wind beats against his face, and tears fill his eyes from the force of the gale.

 _Seven hells_.

The sea stretches out thousands of feet below him, blue-green waves scattering sunlight.

Red and black scales cover the warm bulk beneath him.

Drogon.

He's flying.

They're flying. Rhaegal is a blur of shimmering green as he soars through the air, Jaime and Brienne on his back. Brienne is limp against Jaime.

Jon had cradled dragon eggs in his hands hands. They had been so warm.

And now he is on dragonback, flying to a place only the gods know.

Panic tightens his dry throat.

The eggs.

His muscles ache in protest as he swivels in the saddle. Their near-deaths will mean nothing if they can't take the eggs with them.

Strapped on the front of each dragon are the packs they brought for such a purpose, in the unlikely event that Melisandre was sending them on a mission with a sensible outcome.

His body crumples, the leather straps tight around his waist and legs. They're safe. Thank the gods.

No. The gods have given him sweet grief and terrible mercy. He will not thank them. He'll thank those around him, as a merciless king would not.

He was not merciless when he left Jaime in the godswood with Bran. There's something to Jaime, perhaps. It must've been Jaime who secured the eggs. Dany and Brienne were too ill to take care of them, and Jon has no memory of anything beyond his time in Stygai.

Jaime is without kingship or status. He joined them for Brienne's sake, without any particular desires. But he ensured their safety.

Viserion flits between Rhaegal and Drogon, his vast wings and bulk shielding them from the harshness of the sun. He flies with Rhaegal for a while, nudging at his head, sniffing at Jaime and Brienne. Brienne is still slumped against Jaime, but she's alive. He does the same thing with Jon and Dany, and when he sniffs at Dany and nudges Jon, Jon scratches him above the eye. At least they have their dragons. They're all alive.

Dany may be alive, but she's sleeping so deeply that she hasn't woken up, her breathing comes in shuddering gasps, and her skin feels hotter to the touch with every moment her fragile bones contact his skin. Wherever they are going, she'll need a maester. For now, all he can do is hold her close, keep her safe, and trust that Drogon knows where they are going.

*

Hours later, the vast blue sea begins to transition to green-brown hills, cut through with smooth curves of water that softly ripple through the landscape. Drogon descends. The heat ripples around Jon like a bath. The long dry grass has its own dust that puffs up in clouds of hot yellow and green. He smells the cool river water; its scent lacks the sharpness of Winterfell's ice and the mineral tang of the Northern hot springs.

Drogon is nearly touching land. Flashes of green surround Jon, as he tastes the sweetness of grasses he's never known. Prickly green guardians stand tall in a sky bursting blue with heat. Thin-stemmed shrubs sag beneath their flowers. The weight of their perfume is the most delicate sleeping potion. Each breath of it soothes Jon's lungs, like the musk of some ancient desert witch.

Welcome to Dorne, the witch says. Here, you will meet the sun's greatness.

Drogon crashes onto the cliffs. His claws grasp the sandy white limestone, and chunks of the sparkling rock fall onto the sand below. His wings send puffs of sand steaming into the air.

Through his aching eyes, Jon sees figures coming towards them on the hot sandy beach. He dismounts from Drogon. Dany is beginning to wake, and she opens her eyes and looks at him groggily. Jaime is dismounting from Rhaegal, pulling Brienne carefully with him.

“Where are we?” Dany's eyes are shadowed and hollow, cheekbones sharp against her skin as her eyes scan the sand, the grass, the cliffs, the sea. She is a small starving child, orphaned in a world she does not understand.

Jon takes her hands gently in his; even her bones are tender. He would never have her starve, or be alone. “Your dragons took us to Dorne. It looks like someone knew about us, even if we didn't know about them.”

Dany tries to stand tall, lifts her chin, and looks at him, but he sees the truth of exhaustion in her eyes. It flickers at him once, and then she masters it, and imperiousness falls on her face again. It's surprising how well she can manage to look imposing. But it is not the solid mask of command he knew in Winterfell. It is a translucent curtain, flickering with uncertainty in the hot light. “Let's meet these Dornish. Perhaps they'll be able to explain how it was possible for our dragons to fly us to a place we've never been, without a single word.”

The sun's reflection on the sand is warm on the soft leather of Jon's boots. Melisandre is there in all her red finery, and there are two more Dornish, with their guards in tow. He examines their weapons and armour. Light robes and light weapons: spear and whip. Something new to learn from them about battle techniques.

The Dornish couple – for they are a couple, unashamedly so – extend their hands.

“Oberyn Martell. Some from other places may call me king, but I am not king of these people. They rule themselves. I only help them realise their desires.” Even the extension of his hand has its own grace.

“Ellaria Sand.” The woman is equally graceful and poised, and she regards Jon appraisingly. “I can see why Westeros chose you, and why the Red Woman approves of you.”

Melisandre has been quiet up to now, but she speaks. “Jon Snow. I'm glad to see that you and the rest have arrived safely in Dorne. I'm sure you have many questions.”

“Let us sit together and rest for a while while we answer them.” Oberyn guides them all to a shelter on the beach stocked with comfortable seating, cool drinks and small snacks.

Dany and Brienne sit down, they have said nothing so far, both too shell-shocked and traumatised from their experiences and the recent travel to fully process what has gone on. Jaime is strangely silent too, though Jon thinks he has spent far too much time on dragonback by now to be stunned into silence by it. There's a different reason for his silence as he watches Jon interact; he's examining the scenery with a methodical eye.

Jon sips at the iced wine, unfamiliarly spiced, with hints of cloves and cinammon, nibbles at the olives and cheese, the bread and cold cuts of meat.

“First,” Jaime asks, impatiently, “how in all the Seven Hells did we get here?”

“That's an easy enough question to answer,” Melisandre says. “The blood rite.”

Jon stops in mid-bite. “The blood rite? That was to keep us alive, and had nothing to do with our dragons.”

Melisandre takes a flower from a vase on one of the tables, smoothing the petals and twirling the stem as she talks. “The resurrection rite, and your wedding ceremony, temporarily gave my magic a quality useful for this mission.”

“Which was?” Jaime leans back, a cup of wine in his hand.

“An ability to connect with the dragons.” Melisandre peels the stem, her red-laquered nails bright against the green. “I did not know what your trials in Stygai would bring, though I suspected you would be rendered insensible. I learned from the flames after you left that the eggs needed to be somewhere warm, in Westeros. I also learned that the blood rite had gifted me with this ability for this specific purpose. Using magical means, I instructed the dragons to ensure your safety, and then fly to Dorne.”

Brienne speaks for the first time since their arrival. Her eyes are a paler blue than Jon has ever seen them, and her voice is barely audible. “Melisandre. You know of my mixed feelings about magic. This seems different. This is part of an overarching mission for good, not death.”

The Red Woman loosens her cloak, her face shiny with the heat. “What I am discovering about this kind of magic is that it is more unpredictable than the magic of death. To do good, we must, at times, take unpredictable paths.”

“Like an alliance with Dorne?” Dany's voice still holds some of its fiery power, even through her quiet.

“You need the heat of our land,” Ellaria says, her voice smooth. Her eyes brighten as she continues, “We would like to be part of this mission. It is unique, and it could bring something special to Westeros, perhaps even across the Narrow Sea.”

Jaime grins. “I think the dragons knew more about it before we did. Dorne has the perfect climate, and there's no place more secure than a land of assassins and poisoners.”

Jon's head pounds from the heat of the Dornish sun, the Dornish wine, the Dornish people. It's all too much for him to take at once, and he knows that Dany and Brienne, more than anyone else, need to rest. Before they can all rest, Jon has to be sure. “How do we know you're telling the truth?”

Oberyn's grin is feral. “We rooted out the dissenters, the greedy, the malevolent. Ellaria mixed a special batch of truth serum. Those who lied were killed. Those who seemed suspicious were confined to cells. So we are left with those who are dedicated to the cause, and even they will be watched. These new dragons are too important to be treated any other way.”

“On that note,” Jon says, “We should get them settled in.”

“We have the perfect place for them.” Ellaria leads them onward.

The alcove is warm and dark, tucked into two white cliffs near the shore. The eggs thrum with happiness as their shells contact the sun-warm sand. It's an immense space, surrounded as it is by two massive stone cliffs, big enough to sleep all three dragons. The exhausted beasts do so, after being treated to the finest livestock Dorne has to offer. Their tails curl protectively around the eggs.

As Jon leaves, he notes the presence of four guards posted at the entrance to their private beach.

“I don't think they'll be needing those,” Jaime remarks, chuckling. “Their three adoptive parents can burn to a crisp anyone who gets over the ridge.”

“Just a precaution,” Oberyn responds. “And a demonstration of goodwill.”

Brienne and Dany have said barely a word during this whole interchange. They're exhausted, and as Jon reflects on his own state of mind, he's exhausted, too. Oberyn and Ellaria seem to sense this, and lead them across the beach towards their new living quarters. “We'd hoped,” Ellaria says, “that you would be as amenable to this agreement as we are. Therefore, we made certain assumptions about the standard of living befitting your mission. We hope that this is acceptable.”

It is more than acceptable. Ellaria sweeps her arm across the grandest set of chambers Jon has ever seen in his entire life. Winterfell was grand, yes, but grand in the Northern style. Jon got the scraps, and sat on the periphery, for he was the Bastard of Winterfell. The Wall was no better, with its austere food and austere practices and austere people, and the war simply a continuation of the scarcity he'd always known. He was a king, and the kingdoms he had always known were spare and unassuming.

This room is entirely the opposite of spare and unassuming. The chamber is a cathedral of pale wood glowing with oil, smelling of perfumes spicy and rich. Even the floorboards are crafted of the finest wood, light on his eyes, smooth under his feet. The ornately carved table next to the window is made of a wood Jon has never seen. The setting sun reaches out her red fingers to touch three kinds of wine, deepening the colours in carafes etched with spirals of copper, silver, and gold. Piled next to the wine are delicacies of every description: candied fruit, meat with rich spices that set his nose tingling, peppers soaked in olive oil, soft cheeses studded with herbs.

Jon is not hungry. His head is beyond aching now, and the bed beckons him with what must be softness equal to the Dornish sun. “This is beyond compare, Ellaria. Thank you. You should speak to Sansa and Tyrion, for they are the King and Queen of Westeros in my stead. They may appreciate a visit.” And perhaps for always, depending on how this goes.

“You are most welcome. It is not too often we have the opportunity to raise a new generation of dragons. We'll speak more in the morning, after you are rested.” Oberyn and Ellaria close the door behind them.

Jon looks at Dany. She came very close to death during her time in Stygai, and it is only now that he sees its full impact, under the pink-red light of the Dornish sunset. Her eyes are hooded by dark shadows, her ribs visible beneath the thin, see-through shift she's found in one of the chests of clothing. Even the bones of her wrists are sharp against his hands as he holds hers. “Will you be alright, Dany?”

“I think so. It's just--”

She looks at him then, truly looks at him. Then, she's looking past him. She's staring at something far away from him, from all of Westeros, as if she is a stranger new to the world. He is new to her, and all of this is something out of a dream she's walking through without them. But wherever Dany may be walking, Jon will walk with her. “You're not talking, which is strange.” He grins. “I'm used to you ordering me around. You'd better get better soon, so that can happen more often.”

She smiles, something of her fire sparking within her face. “I suppose I'd better. We have eggs to hatch, dragons to train, Dornish to learn from.”

“Already, you're thinking of learning something new. First, you need to rest. Eat. You've gotten bony.” He passes her a pepper, and she takes it neatly between her teeth, licking the oil off his fingers. Her mouth is warm, but they're too tired for such things. There's too much for them to consider.

Dany chews, then swallows. “You really want this.”

Jon pours himself a cup of wine, watching the reddish liquid swirl into his cup. “It seems Melisandre has her own plans for us, and the dragons, too. We're alive, which is more than I can say for any other outcome of the war. We get to sleep in a bed like this.” He sips at the wine, then puts it back on the table, stretching out on the bed. The soft silk and cool linen are balms for his bones. “I think we need it. Besides, I think both my fathers would've approved. Working for good, and working with dragons.”

Jon decided when he saw Jaime on Rhaegal, holding Brienne. The Kingslayer – Ser Jaime – had nothing in this but the woman he cared for, and the blood rite he'd been a part of. Jaime was no king; he had no desire for such elevation. He'd gone on this journey with no birthright or destiny or purpose. He was simply Jaime.

Jon Targaryen, Jon Stark, had been simply Snow, once. And like Jon had been, Jaime was a man adrift. He had done what he felt was necessary, in the throne room, in the tower, in the war. After so many years, Jaime had been set adrift.

Now, Jaime is creating his own purpose. Once black, coated in the ash of mistrust, it is now gold, and Jon sees that through the eyes of the man who made his heart anew.

Jon could have a golden brother, so different than his black brothers were.

All honour is the same, in its complexity of origin.

*

Jon is returning from the privy when he sees Jaime and Dany leaning against the doorway. Her eyes are soft, and Jaime's too; and Jon feels a moment of jealousy well up in him, until he realises they're talking about Brienne. Jaime nods to him. “Brienne looks better than Dany, though she's sleeping like the dead.”

Jon looks at him. “You got us here. How are you?”

Jaime looks away, out the window, frown lines in his face etched by twilight. “The dragons did that,” Jaime says. “Although, I suppose I helped. You were both too sick to do much of anything. I don't remember much of anything, either, after I got us on Drogon and Rhaegal. Just waking up in mid-air.” Jaime shudders.

“Still,” Dany says, and she lets her hand brush his. Jaime's eyes search hers. Then, Jaime's eyes meet Jon's in a fragile question, unanswerable by Melisandre's magic, or Dany's dragonfire, or Brienne's blade.

Dany lays her hand more firmly over Jaime's arm. “You got us here."

Jon sees the quiet in her eyes, the softness of her appraisal. He knows what it means, and in him something clenches, briefly, then eases.

Dany smiles at Jon, then Jaime. "Will Brienne be alright?”

“I'll have you know, the only reason I did all this was for Brienne,” Jaime says. Jon knows he's lying, as much as he knows that Jaime's words about Cersei and Aerys were true.

Jaime smiles. “She'll be fine. She's a warrior.”

Jon feels his own exhaustion ripple through him. “We should sleep. We'll speak again in the morning.”

“Goodnight.” Jaime turns and walks down the corridor, and Jon joins Dany in their chamber.

After sleep takes him, Jon floats in a silver sky, in a pool of golden sun.

The witch's blade is warmest steel. On it blooms a four-petaled flower, each lobe a fragment of his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the purposes of this story, Elia Martell does not exist, and Dorne has always been off doing its own thing.


	11. Polish

There is too much political discussion, it is too hot, and Jaime's flown too far. There are too many dragons, and all their eggs, and all he wants to do is fall into bed. He'll sleep like a dead man. Though he doesn't recall sleeping while he was dead; and then, he entirely regrets the comparison. It takes all his strength to smile at their hosts, as they chatter away about one thing or another. 

Oberyn and Ellaria have settled Dany and Jon in their chambers, and Jaime and Brienne are left to listen to their banter. Jaime would probably enjoy it, maybe even participate himself, if he weren't so bloody close to collapsing into the potted palms that line the hallway. But, he is a soldier, after all, and so he acts as one. The effort distracts him from any attempts at witty banter the Dornish might be making towards him. 

Oberyn's talking about their room, it seems. Their ... single room? It must be, for Brienne looks more alert than she has since she nearly fell from Rhaegal's back after they reached Dorne. She's also very red. Yes. It must be. 

“It would be a shame,” Oberyn says, grinning mischievously, “if you were to find yourselves in a room with such inconvenient accommodations. But,” and here he sighs, “the lady needs her rest to heal, and so do you.”

“We do,” Jaime says. “This should do quite nicely, thank you.” It will do more than nicely, he thinks. Better than anything I ever had in King's Landing, and it figures. Make an insane choice that works out well, and the world will fall at your feet. Oh, and don't forget to die. That always helps. Just keep making insane choices and doing insane things with your life. If you're lucky, some of them come back to haunt you for the better. You end up in a warm part of the world, with creatures who could burn you but are instead your friends, and you get to ride them, and you are about to spend the night in a soft, wonderful bed with a woman whom you most definitely will never despise, and who, if nothing else, does not completely despise you.

The woman of Jaime's thoughts is sitting stiffly on a chair close to the door, clutching the stem of an ornate wine glass. She won't drink, the ridiculous woman; she's just fidgety. He should probably prepare himself for another revelation. The last time they were in a room alone together and Brienne was not herself, he nearly drank himself to death. But she won't drink, and she won't reveal anything. She's weaker than he's ever seen her-- no, she'd bash him over the head to hear that, stubborn woman. 

“Lady Brienne,” he begins, ensuring his voice has that annoying lilt. “There's a perfectly fine – no, I'd say more than fine – bed here. If you were going to sleep in a chair, you should've gone to Bear Island. Those Northerners would applaud you for making yourself deliberately uncomfortable.” 

There's a flash of anger in her eyes before she takes one of the blankets from the bed. She strides to the other side of the room, lays out the blanket, puts her pack underneath, and lies down with her back to him. “The floor will be fine.”

Brienne is not going to sleep on the floor. This will not happen. A woman who has nearly died in the depths of her shadow, been slaughtered by his sword, and travelled thousands of miles across the world on dragonback will not sleep on the floor. She deserves the comfort of a thousand Dornish beds, and all the comforts found within them. For the rest of her life. 

Jaime lifts her in his arms. She does not struggle. He can feel her bones, sharp under her skin, though she is still as thickly-muscled as ever. She will feel better in the morning, when she has felt the softness of those sheets. She deserves to feel something soft. She never had a chance to feel something soft, in all those years of winter and war. He eases her down onto the bed; she falls without form. She is still fully clothed. If she had her way, she'd put on her boots so she could kick him in the night, as punishment for visiting such indignity upon her. When she was better, he'd ask to learn something of what she'd been teaching Dany. She could cut him up as much as she wanted. 

There is something else he wants now. Brienne is nearly asleep, pale and weak and very still, lying on her side, her back to him. He takes her hand. He is a golden dagger, and she shies away from his light, though it is the reflection of her own. It is worth so much more now, his gold, shaped into a form made for her. For them. 

Brienne does not pull her hand away; she is too weak to do so. Jaime turns to face her back, feels the hard bone and warm flesh of her hand against his palm, curls his fingers around her own. Her breathing has the deep rhythm of sleep. For a while he feels safe to hold her gently, to smell the steel in her skin and hair. To feel the warmth of her blood in the wrist touching his own. 

But soon, even the moon is too warm, and so Jaime rises. A wave of dizziness hits him. He is weak, too; they were all made weaker by their experience on the great shadow river. He nearly drowned in his own. He sits at the table, pours water from one of the silver carafes into a goblet and swallows it. Its coolness soothes the tenderness of his body. The heat of his blood is more than even the sun could take. Perhaps a few moments in the fresh air of the night will calm him. He walks down the hall, where he sees Dany leaning against her doorway. He nods to her.

“Your Grace.” 

“Ser Jaime.” 

She is as sick as Brienne, her eyes as sunken in their hollows of black and blue, her bones as sharp against the skin, her skin as pale. But the light of his dagger is as much a reflection of her silver as Brienne's steel. There is no gold that is not made better by the addition of silver and steel. But silver is still wary of the price of gold, and she is still wary of him. He will not be so bold with her as he was with Brienne. “You're awake.” 

“I am. I think Brienne knows how I feel.” Her voice has a hoarseness to it, and a smallness. 

Jaime smiles, feeling the smooth warmth of the moon. “I'm sure she would, if she were awake. She wanted to sleep on the floor, silly woman. It seems our little adventure has made her less practical.”

“You care for her.” Dany's voice is soft, the childlike bewilderment back in her eyes. He seems to bewilder her. He does not want to make her feel like a child. 

“Yes.”

No truth Jaime could give would be enough for Brienne, or Dany, or any of them, though he has given them nearly all his truths. His caring for Brienne would not be enough, for his sword had killed her. He had saved her, and he had killed her, and this was the truth of his life.

But there was the truth of his new feeling, of the new hand that had grown within him, the alloyed heart with words that could never be taken. They all had words to give him, and he would share his. Brienne might not listen, but no one could take his patience from him.  
*

The pre-dawn light casts itself upon Jaime's face in silver and steel. It brushes gently against his eyelids, and he blinks, waking. He is very comfortable, very warm, and in a bed of surprising softness. Then he remembers. He is not alone in this very comfortable, very warm, very soft bed. If the gods were good, Brienne got some rest and will be feeling better this morning. She would able to contribute her usual silence, interspersed with indignantly honourable exclamations, to any discussion. The sun, barely rising, is still hot enough to bring sweat up on his brow .He moves to wipe his forehead, but his hand is held fast. It's Brienne. She'd not let go of his hand when he returned to bed that night; she'd clasped it in her own. Yes, she'd been ill, asleep. Could she have been dreaming? He hopes so. It is time for them to have some peace, some soothing dreams. More than soothing. 

He needed more than soothing himself. He'd asked her, half-seriously. Though in the deepest part of him, he ached with an earnestness he hadn't felt since he'd barrelled into battle at Winterfell, since Brienne had threatened the Queen. Since he'd spoken to Bran and Jon, and cast the futility of his life at their feet. Since he'd cast the futility of his self at the Queen's feet. Since he'd brought himself to Rhaegal, and burned for the purification of his fire. 

He'd not asked these things of Brienne, not her forgiveness or understanding or purification. He'd cut her so gently with his dagger on their wedding day, though she treated him as if even his voice and eyes left permanent scars in places he'd never touched. It was only fair that he have something of what the King and Queen had. They'd had her blood, and her mouth. In his shadow he'd remembered Cersei's. He'd let that remembrance melt away in green and red, in metal and dragonglass. He'd had only the smallest touch of steel. Only a drop in the molten alloy of his blood. It was so delicate and so brief, and Brienne had shied away so sweetly from him when he'd asked. Jaime knows the courage of Brienne's hand, wants the blood in her wrist, again, as she is so warm. Needs her mouth, steel and soft and sharp. There is so much of her he knows, and wants, and needs. 

She is turned to face him, her body curled on the other side of the bed, arm stretched to clasp his. He wouldn't tell her that she'd taken his hand. Or he would, just to watch her freckles stand out against the redness of her skin, and imagine how it would feel warming against him. He moves closer to her, soundlessly. Closer still, until he feels her soft warm breath rustle his hair. Against his gold, her steel softens him. 

He pulls his hand out of hers to feel the sharpness of her cheekbones, the softness of her brows, the flutter of her eyelashes. He feels a brief pang of remorse to think of what he is taking without her permission, but if she could not give her permission, then he would have to take that, too. 

She would not hesitate to push him away. She could wrap her hands around his throat and crush it without breaking a sweat. 

Her mouth is as warm as her breath and her body. 

She could cut him down with Oathkeeper, and he would gladly bleed the alloy of his blood into the hot sand for this, her sweet steel. 

He waits four heartbeats, for his heart is is beating fast enough to melt out of his chest, his blood full of fetal dragonfire, melted steel, and gold.

On the fifth heartbeat, Brienne's arms shove at his chest, and she rises up from the bed, towering over him. She is very red, and Jaime knows something of what Melisandre said on their wedding day. “What do you think you're doing?” 

He rolls onto his back, stretches out to take all the room, relaxing, and puts his hands behind his head. He grins. This will be thoroughly entertaining. “Well, you see, Brienne, there are certain things I asked for that I was not given.”

“Ser Jaime.” Brienne is not a stupid woman. If there are gods, they made her smart, and stubborn, and beautiful, in her strength, and her choice not to crush his throat. “I gave you what you wanted.” Her eyes are still circled with the bruises of exhaustion, but there's healthy colour in her cheeks, beneath the fire of her blush. Good.

Jaime stands up from the bed, taking her hand, pulling her against him. “You gave me what I asked for,” he says. He encircles her with his other arm. “You did not give me what I wanted.” Brienne is very still against him. Her scent is sweet polished steel. He breathes it in as he continues, “That, I had to take.” 

“You cannot take a single thing from me, Ser Jaime,” she says, irritably. 

He grins. “I know. You could've woken up sooner, you know. Perhaps there was a dream you were having? Something more pleasant than you were expecting?” 

She is redder than before, and her blush against his skin feels as warm as he expected. “Have I mentioned how incredibly stupid you are?” 

This time his grin is on the inside, and the warmth of her skin heats his heart. 

*

They're emerging from the dragon alcove when Jaime turns to her. “You look better.” It's true. She'd had a good sleep on a good bed, a surfeit of delicious food, meats and cheeses and breads, and good wine, despite the early hour, and a long, quiet visit with the dragons and their eggs. They didn't talk much, Brienne putting her head against Viserion's, stroking his wing, while Jaime did the same with Rhaegal and Drogon. They'd watched the sun reach its full height in the sky, making the soft stone shimmer, while the sweet scent of flowers and hot sand had swirled gently around them. 

It might be a while before Brienne gains back her lost weight, before the dark circles around her eyes fully fade, but her face has lost its pallor, and her smile has lost its tension. Jaime wants to see her smile again, so he says, “In fact, I'd say you might be in the mood for a battle. The weather favours it.” He smiles, just a bit expectantly. 

Brienne digs her feet into the sand with each step. “What would we fight with? Our swords are--” and here her face turns yet another most delightful shade of red-- “in the room.” 

“They may be in our room,” Jaime says, “but we don't need swords to spar.” He lifts his left hand, then his stump, to her. “You already have an advantage.”

“I've lost so much strength. I know you'll let me win,” Brienne says, with a grimace. “I won't have an advantage over an opponent who deliberately tries to lose.” 

Jaime does not seek to lose. 

His surrender would not be his loss. It would be a golden dagger gladly given to the woman strong enough to crush his throat. A victory desperately earned.

But if there is something else Brienne wants, he will give it to her. 

Jaime tackles her to the ground, his right arm wrapping around her waist, and his left sinking into the soft sand behind her head to break her fall. She has lost strength, but he will not subject her to the indignity of his knowing. Brienne's eyes are wide on his, dark from her shock, and she's breathing hard. His smile is small, but his heart could burst from his chest. “Would you call this 'trying to lose'?” 

She is quiet and still underneath him, and he feels the jut of her hipbones sharp against him. “I would call that wilful deception.” 

Irritating Brienne is one of the singular joys of his life. 

*

They've been wrestling for a while now, neither one of them gaining an advantage. Brienne's irritation has turned to anger. The blood of Jaime's bursting heart is hot and full. He's pinned Brienne's legs beneath him, and her wrist to the sand. She is soft skin and sweet strength against him, as he presses his forearm into her stomach.

He lowers his mouth to her ear. “I yield.”

Every war in Westeros has brought him here, to the battlefield of her body, to sacrifice himself.

Jaime feels the press of Brienne's blunt nails on the back of his neck, feels the vibrations in her throat as she growls her frustration. He has her now. She must yield to his surrender. He would give her his body as easily as his life. 

Brienne's teeth are sharp in his flesh, and he draws back, sucking in a breath. She clamps her legs around his hips and rolls them over, and now she is the one to pin him against the sand. Drops of his blood spiral into the dust as she hauls him up by a fistful of his tunic. “This is how you yield, Jaime.” Her eyes are a hotter blue than the sky, her face a hotter red than the blood flowing down his neck.

*

By the time they're tending to their wounds, Brienne has composed herself, though he notes the blood still warm in her cheeks, the blue of her eyes. She's wiping down his neck and he hisses with the pain of it, and the gentle pleasure of her touch. Dany and Jon are watching them speculatively, and when Jon raises a single eyebrow in Jaime's direction, Dany tugs hard on the bandage she's wrapping around Jon's ribs, and he grins. Dany has a soft half-smile for all of them, and Jaime feels warmer for it, and for the strength of Brienne's blush. 

*

When he returns to their room in the evening dark, Brienne is stretched out on the floor.

Her breathing has the easy rhythm of sleep, and he will not wake her. 

He has yielded, and his surrender demands his patience.


	12. Sharpen

The light of early dawn filters through the linen curtains, and Brienne wakes to a sore back. Her thick blankets were not enough to cushion her sleep. She does not let herself watch Jaime sleep; she does not need his vulnerability. She rolls out of her blankets, steps into her boots, and quietly leaves the room. She has been faced with too much humanity, too much discussion, and too much feeling. She needs to be alone. To commune with creatures who do not want to understand her. To feel the wind on her face.

The guards nod to her as she walks across the sand. The alcove is comfortably temperate. Rhaegal and Drogon raise their heads and huff out happy greetings; before the blood rite, she would not have known of their happiness. She smiles at this. They are sleepy, but Viserion is, thankfully, wide awake. 

The morning sun is soft on her skin as she changes into her riding leathers, the sand warm on the soles of her feet. When she pulls on her boots, Viserion looks at her, alert. She applies some oil to his scales before pulling herself up by his spines. His back feels comfortable, now, and when he lifts off from the beach, what was once terrifying is now exhilarating, and she laughs delightedly. 

Brienne does not direct him. She will enjoy the scenery, with no particular destination. Above the place that has brought her this strange new life, with all its complications, she has space to think. She is safe from weapons against which she has no defense. 

There was a place for her in Winterfell, and in all the armies of Westeros. There was a duty for her to fulfill, a life defined for her by her own choice. A life that she had chosen because she believed it was the only choice she had. She was strong and quick and skilled with the sword, and the world was falling apart under winter's ice. So it was that she battled. And won.

This is a battle she does not have to win. 

After Stygai, Jaime had shoved her onto Rhaegal's back, his eyes filled with fear; then she fell out of consciousness, only to wake in Dorne. 

And there was the room.

Brienne had dreamed of a warm, soft bed, and of her sickness draining away into sunlight. All around her was warm gold. Jaime was a hot dagger that burned her mouth with his sweetness. The heat had been in his eyes when she pushed him away, and had remained through the morning, afternoon, and even before they slept. She had burned with its blade. 

*

Brienne sits on the white cliffs, the sand warm and grainy on her skin. Sun-rays streak through the sky. The light is hot on her legs. Dany and Jon swim in the waters below; she watches the sky as they laugh and play. Their dragons dive with them, emerging with fish in their claws. 

She does not want to watch their joy. She has come here to be alone. 

“You want that, don't you.” Jaime's voice is sad and sharp behind her. He cuts without his golden dagger. “You'd like to have that with them, to be a secret hidden even from me.” Brienne turns. He's leaning against the rock wall that overlooks the sea. 

The sun's light is the deep yellow of melted butter. It should warm her face, but she only feels cold. She sighs and rests her head against the stone. The glass particles reflect sparkles onto her skin. Succulents grow from the cracks, and their white flowers fill the air with heady fragrance. She swallows the scent and says, “You seem to know very well what you want, Jaime.”

He turns to the wall, leans his head against it. “I knew what I wanted when I pulled the pieces of our sword from your flesh. I knew what I wanted, even before Stygai.”

“Not all of us are so quick to know.” 

She needs him, she wants him, she knows him.

He turns from the rock, his feet crunching over the coarse sand. “We are married, Brienne.” He takes her hand. “You hold yourself apart from all of us like it is still winter, and we are your greatest battle.”

The sky is a window without sleet, blue and hot. She does not count the clouds. 

She is drawing her sword, but she cannot be a soldier.

Her openness must be her armour. Her heart must be her blade.

“Yes.”

She flinches from its steel.

“Why?” The tenderness in Jaime's eyes is a loathsome thing.

“Because I am not like you.”

Her blade cuts them both. 

“What would you have me be, to be more like you?” 

It is right, that such a stupid, terrible man should be so wounded. Her need, her want, her knowledge, they have only wounded her. They are only meant for wounding. 

Brienne smiles, and it is the weakest winter sun. “I would not have you change.”

She knows Jaime's beauty; she needs it, she wants it. It is his golden dagger. 

He's still looking at her as his hand moves to her face. “You would change yourself.” His gentleness is terrifying. 

She rages at the enemy who holds her heart. It slices his hands as he crushes it. 

“I would not change what saved two lives. Nor would they.” His thumb brushes her mouth. 

His blood flows in hot gold ribbons. They melt her armour. 

Her battle is lost. 

She is not dead, but he has killed her, and his eyes are full of grief.

“See the Queen. She will tell you the same.” 

His kiss is her resurrection.

*

She sees the Queen.

Dany is sitting with Viserion, who is sunning himself on the sand. His throat rumbles with pleasure. Dany leans back against the dragon's bulk, stretching herself along his side. She sits up when she sees Brienne approach, and all the warmth of dragonfire is in her smile. Dark circles still ring her eyes, and the bones of her neck, shoulders and collarbone stick out sharply when she shifts position. Even weak and recovering, she is still lovely. 

“Dany.” 

“Brienne. How are you?” She takes a few strange-looking fruits from the platter beside her and tries to feed them to Viserion. He whuffs, and turns his head away. Brienne suppresses a chuckle. Dany's laugh rings out like bells, echoing off the cliffs. 

“I'm well, Dany. You look...” Brienne will try to be tactful, but not too much so. The Queen does not appreciate dishonesty. “Still a bit exhausted, I think. We need to make sure you get more to eat. I think Viserion's stealing your meat when you're not looking.”

Dany smiles at that, though there's a tiredness in it. “Jon tells me the same thing.” Dany pats the sand beside her. “He's warm too, though it's different from the sun, and the sand. It's interesting to compare.”

Brienne sits beside Dany. She smells of something warm, heady and sweet. Not a Dornish perfume; something all her own. Her skin is soft as her arm brushes Brienne's. Brienne feels sleepy, languid. Dany's voice is warm beside her. “I trust you're recovering well?”

“I think so.”

“I know Jaime's not the only one who's concerned about you.”

A woman's war is more subtle. 

Dany has her dragons, and her arakh, but is not using them in this battle. Her weapons are the warmth of her skin and the softness in her eyes. It is not a cruel enemy Brienne faces, with his bludgeoning tenderness, his agonising beauty, as desperate as the sun. Hers is an insidious silver poison, a liquid flowing under the skin, wearing away the strength of her blood. It is the ache of the dragonskin Brienne peeled away, the husk of Dany's arrogance, burning in the heat. 

Dany's silver runs quick in the blood. Brienne does not know what to do with these hands that so easily hold hers. She looks at them, joined. They are both warriors. They understand the value of titles. She begins to draw her hands away, to draw herself up. “Your Grace--”

“Brienne.” Dany has found a new use for her imperiousness. “I am not your ruler here.” She holds Brienne's hands fast. “I would not rule over you.” Her voice gentles. “I would not ask for your fealty to the crown.” She draws Brienne's hands over her heart, dragonwings filling her blood with their rhythm. Her eyes are bright and clear. “I would ask for your fealty in this marriage, for the gift of your spirit.” She places Brienne's hands in her lap and strokes Viserion. When she turns back to Brienne, her eyes are wet. “What happened to me was as necessary as what you must hear from me.”

The quicksilver engulfs each drop of her blood. “Yes, Your Grace.” 

“You could not hear this from Jaime because you know him too well. It only made you angry. You will hear it from me. Perhaps, in time,” and she smiles softly to herself, “I, too, will feel the anger of Brienne of Tarth.” 

Brienne is too tired for anger. “Perhaps.”

“If this is to be a true marriage, and I trust it is, as I trusted you in Stygai,” Dany says, “then we must be true with each other. And you must let us care for you. And show you what you truly are.” 

The bright silver blade, the poisoned tip, the quicksilver, the moon on white-gold dragon wing. They make of her blood cool evening light. 

The truth will come in the night, and soothe her fear with its sweetness.

*

She does not see the King.

He does not wait for her to see him.

Brienne is barefoot in the hot training grounds. The Dornish are brave and strong fighters, and those who work with the sword have much to teach her about their forms. So they are, and so she is practicing, alone, in the near-dawn light that shimmers with heat yet to come. The footwork does not trouble her; it is more delicate than the Westerosi form, but manageable in her loose robe. The sand is hot, but the bottoms of her feet are becoming calloused with heat and wear, and while she practices, she does not notice such sensations. Her only focus is on the path they must take her to engage her invisible partners. 

They are not enemies, the golden dagger, the delicate quicksilver, the blades and poisons that fill her senses. They should brand her body and her blood; it is their right. She is their wife. But it must be her choice. 

Footfalls register in her awareness

Jon already has Longclaw drawn. He, too, has been training in the Dornish way of fighting. There is a light in his eyes and he is smiling, though he attacks Brienne with ferocity, a wolf even in the heat of the sun. They are well matched, when they fight in the Westerosi way. But this is different; it is something new to both of them. Jon has become more familiar with it than Brienne, it seems, for he is beating her. She is parrying and slashing and weaving and he is a graceful creature, dodging her attempts easily, advancing on her and finally knocking her into the sand. Longclaw is at her throat and she closes her eyes. 

She feels his hand on her face, brushing back her sweaty hair. “You must yield, Brienne.” 

He rolls away from her and they lie on the sand together, breathing hard. She cannot make herself say the words. But she knows he's right. 

*

Viserion is half-awake, and he tilts his head at her, his throat vibrating. He unfurls a wing, and sweeps her underneath it. She lies there, thinking. She could not have predicted that the course of her life would take her where she is now, under the protection of a creature who could burn her alive, the sworn protector of eggs created from the pain of four strange souls. She is here, with all of them, and she has a duty. Her fear must not prevent this duty. Her duty will be all the more difficult without the openness of her heart. There is an opportunity here, vast and bright. Her blade led her to this. Her strength led her to this. Her duty led her to this. Perhaps this was another test of her courage. The inner world, the inner battle. Invisible battles are the most difficult. 

But she is not alone in this fight. She is not a single soldier against the Night Queen of her terrified heart. They have pulled her broken heart from her and melted it together again. They are her husbands, and her wife. They are bound together by magic, and duty. There is nothing but her reluctance stopping them from being bound together by feeling. 

It is her duty to do her best to allow them.

*

The hot springs are warm, bubbling against the backdrop of palms and fig trees, ripe with succulent fruit. Brienne's stomach is pleasantly full, her mind drifty, sleepy from the wine she's had. It was a celebration. There were times for duty to others, and times for duty to oneself. Oberyn had made sure of that. 

She stays with Viserion for a bit, and rests her head against him. He rubs up against her, and then he nudges her towards the hot pool. “Fine,” Brienne mutters. “Even you want me to relax.” 

She moves to the back of the cave, where the soft light of the fading sun filters through palm leaves, patterning the sand. She examines the patterns for a while. It will be good to have a rest, a long bath in the soft, warm outdoors. She takes out the bag Oberyn has given her, full of soaps, oils and salts, laying them out along the edge of the pool. She is blissfully alone, and she strips, easing herself into the hot water. The pool's heat penetrates every sore muscle and bone, and her eyes close. The soap is soft, and smells of the flowers that surround the cave. 

There's a hand, gentle on her shoulder, wet and warm. A familiar scent. A familiar voice. “Let me help you, Brienne.” She is frozen, with her back to Jaime, as she hears the scraping of soap on stone. There is no battle left for her to fight. She must allow the mercy of his touch. 

She will not turn to him. He does not speak as he soaps her back, fingertips lingering on the ridges of her spine that are still slightly prominent. His breath is warm on her neck. It is another world she is in, another hallucination, a golden world given form by his body. His palm cups her hip as if she is the most delicate glass, and his touch brands her as it always has. She swallows, and this seems to bring him out of his stillness, for he presses himself against her back. She feels him there, the soft hair of his body, warm and pleasantly abrasive, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes against her, the thick musculature of his thighs cradling her own. He swallows, too, and even the movement of his throat against her skin sets it aglow. 

When Jaime speaks, his voice is quiet. “We know you.” His hand is still on her hip, and he reaches to stroke lightly, gently, at the skin covering her hipbone. “We need you.” His fingers graze her inner thigh, softly, slowly. “We want you with us.” His kiss on the back of her neck is a faint whisper. “Let us show you.”


	13. Burnish

Dany sits on the vine-covered terrace, nibbling on fruit and sipping cool spiced tea. Jon sits beside her, and they are quiet under the auspices of the sun. Today, Dany does not have to listen to subjects plead their cases. She does not have to fly dragons to burn a thousand wights. She does not have to watch scales peel away from her body. She can enjoy a world that asks nothing of her. Her body relaxes into the soft cushions, and she stretches out her legs to feel the sun.

She is falling into a doze when she feels the cushions shift. Jaime and Brienne have come to share the morning. Jaime's eyes are warm on Brienne, but she is a statue, pale as the land in front of them. Jon looks over at Dany, and they begin to speak their silent language, learned in winter.

Jon raises an eyebrow. _Do you think they--_

Dany tightens her grip on his hand. _No! Look at her!_

_She looks angry._ The slightest thinning of his lips.

_She's afraid._ Her thumb stroking his palm.

_We'll put them to rights, then._

_It's not like it was with us._

_Oh, and it was so easy with you._

_Let me help her._

_He won't hurt her._

Dany makes a fist against his palm.  _I won't let him._

_I thought you were becoming fond of his teachings._ Jon rubs his thumb between her index and middle fingers, pressing into the webbing there.

She digs her nails into his palm. _Quiet._

_I'm not talking._

_You never offered to teach me._

_I didn't have to._

*

Jon guides Dany as she wields Longclaw. “It needs a blunter touch than your arakh.” His body is warm against hers, his arms damp with sweat as they press against hers. “You're a dragon; put some fire into that swing.”

She spins, pressing the blade against his chest, and he presses back, grasping her wrists. “Excellent. Tell me what you've learned of the whip, and we'll soon have a full fighting force between the four of us.”

Dany is learning something of the intoxicating effects of close combat, and she throws Longclaw to the ground, pulling Jon to her by his hips. The sweat on his neck smells of the hot dust of their battle. She presses her nose into it, then her mouth to the delicate shell of his ear. “I'd rather practice other things.”

*

Dany's watching Jon test the arakh in his hand. He should be clumsier with it, given that he's trained so little with the blade. If only they'd thought of this sooner. There was no time during the war. No time to just be together, sharing themselves, relaxed, wielding weapons of war in a place of peace. In his own peace, Jon is beautiful in the soft dark power befitting him, and beautiful with her blade in his hand.

There's a shadow on the sand, and Jaime sits by her. “I thought I'd train with you both for a while, but it seems Jon's occupied.”

“It's how he thinks. We all have a lot to think about.”

“Daenerys.”

There it is again, that gentleness that could almost be weakness. The crippled murderer who would never want a crown. He would've collapsed under its weight, and yet he did not collapse in Stygai.

“How is Brienne, Jaime?”

Though he has not collapsed under the weight of their marriage, he looks like he could. “She's tired. I--”

He looks as Brienne did in her grief, white and stricken. “I was intemperate. It was early, and the sun was hot. She is no poisoned princess, in thrall to a spell I must break.”

“No,” Jon says, coming to sit with them. “She is an equal in this marriage. We are more than equals, now.”

*

It is the second dusk after their flight to Sunspear, and the main hall has been organised for a celebration of its new arrivals. The feast had been unlike any in Winterfell, tables groaning with the weight of honeyed meat, roasted peppers stuffed with cheese, bread made from the flour of desert plants, and olives of every variety. For dessert, there were tiny sugar-coated fruits stuffed with crushed nuts, and as many varieties of wine as stars in the sky.

Brienne savours her wine, Jaime slugs his down like a dying desert lizard, and Jon takes measured sips. Dany makes eye contact with Oberyn over the rim of her goblet, and he raises his to her with a smile. Everything has been prepared for them.

The outdoor hot springs are at least five days travel away on foot; on dragonback, they arrive long before the sun has set. Brienne guides Viserion to land near a cave a significant distance from the rest of them, but Jaime does not do the same. Whatever he and Jon discussed, he's giving Brienne her space. For now. As soon as Viserion touches down, Brienne dismounts and turns her back to the sky, sitting with him, resting close.

Jaime's standing next to Rhaegal, stroking his side. “Will she let us, do you think?”

Dany steps up beside him to caress Rhaegal's head. “She'll go wherever she wants to. We just have to help her see the path.”

*

Dany dangles her feet in the water, her drying hair a pale spirit given new life in moonlight. Jon brings her flowers from the shrubs surrounding them, and she braids them into her hair while he watches, his eyes dark. His hand is warm on her back. He smells of salt from the pool and the sweet musk of soap, and a quality all his own, smoke-grey and evergreen, cool against the hot orange-red scent of the sands.

There's a shuffling noise, and Dany looks up to see Brienne approaching them, her head held high, the muscles of her body frozen, as if to meet death by the Night Queen. Dany is only the queen of her own life now, reborn in Dorne's eternal heat. A queen of the smallest dawn, who asks her lovers for their coldest night, and warms them with her rising sun.

Jaime guides Brienne gently to the edge of the pool. He sits between Jon and Dany, and pulls Brienne into his lap. That shakes her out of her stupor, for she struggles in his arms. “You cannot--”

“You agreed to this, Brienne.”

Dany takes an arm, and wraps the other around Brienne's waist. “Do you remember what Melisandre said?”

Brienne is very still. “I do.” The skin of Brienne's neck is smooth and hot against Dany's own, in contrast with the rough, cool linen of her tunic.

“Not easy to do that if you won't let her, is it?” Jon's voice is low, with a note of resignation, as he takes Brienne's other arm.

In their silent language, he says, _We just had to marry the most stoic warrior in all of Westeros._ The smallest eyeroll, a finger's flicker towards Brienne, a squeeze of Dany's hand.

Jaime's holding Brienne tightly on his lap, and his eyes are closed, his face wreathed in a look of absolute concentration, as if to convince her of their feelings by his mind alone. “This marriage can't work without you, Brienne.” 

Dany nudges Jon's foot, rubbing at the exposed skin of his leg.  _He's appealing to her sense of honour_ .

“If the same pact had been made, and I was not a part of it, it would not have mattered.” 

“Why?”

“You're all so—”

“Wait for time to do its work on us,” Jaime says. He presses his mouth to the back of Brienne's neck, and when she shivers, so does Dany. “Your determination and strength and honour and gentleness will still make me harder than any Dornish maiden ever could.”

“And wetter,” Dany adds, nipping at Brienne's ear. 

Jon interlaces his fingers with Brienne's own. He brings her wrist to his mouth, biting gently at the skin there. “And better.” 

Brienne buries her face in Jaime's neck, her neck bright red and hot, her hand shaking where Dany holds it. “As I am thoroughly outmatched,” she says, “I yield.” 

 


	14. Forge

“An engagement?” 

Brienne winces as Jaime tightens his grip around her waist. He might crush her ribs. She's still in their arms, warm with the touch of their bodies and the steam from the pool. 

Her voice is quiet and shaky as she ventures, “I thought we might -- there was a lot of wine served at the feast--”

“Brienne!” Jaime moves his hand to Brienne's shoulder, clutching almost to the point of pain. “We did not convince you so that we could then be forced to wait!” When he loosens his grip, she turns, and he moves his hand back to her waist. 

“What our often tactless Kingslayer really means,” Dany says, rolling her eyes at Jaime, “is that there are things he would like to share with you.” Her palm is cool on Brienne's cheek. 

“What I really mean, my often presumptuous Queen, is that this woman has been my wife for months now, and yet she expects me to wait another month!” He lets out a growl. “We could have the ceremony here, now, as we are. Say whatever words we want to say. Then, by all our dragons yet to come, I will have my wife.” 

Brienne's side vibrates with Jon's soft chuckle. “I think Brienne's stubbornness is rubbing off on you.”

Jaime groans. “That's not all I want rubbing off on me. Gods, Jon, when you trained with her, did you ever imagine her beautiful cu--”

Dany pulls Jaime's hair. “Lannister!”

Jaime grimaces, then schools his features into those of a wounded innocent. Looking up at Dany, he asks, lashes fluttering, “Targaryen?”

“Save your words for tonight.”

A light dawns in Jaime's eyes. “Tonight?” 

“If Brienne is amenable.” Dany's grip on Jaime's hair is looser now, and she runs her fingers through it.

Perhaps Brienne should feel set adrift. Perhaps she should feel jealous, a jealous woman in an unfamiliar world. 

She could understand a world without Jaime's resurrection. In such a world, Brienne has been knighted for her service in the war. She does good works all around Westeros. She sleeps on the softening ground. Her tears feed spring's new growth, and her grief wakes every hibernating creature. 

This world is warm with a summer they have made for her, hot and sweet. There is no space for jealousy in her heart. If Jaime killed her in Stygai, and this is the world of her ghost, let her stay dead. “I am amenable.” 

“Good,” Jon says, smiling. “Dany and I--” Dany ruffles Jon's hair-- “well, it was more Dany than I. We considered this possibility, and had preparations made.” 

*

Brienne is readying Viserion for flight when she feels Jaime's arms around her.

“Am I still in Westeros?”

“Don't be stupid.”

“I was never revived. My body was left to freeze on the battlefield. Rhaegal granted my request, and Queen Daenerys threw my ashes into the sea.” Jaime's laugh is frantic, delirious. “I'm in the best of all the seven heavens, with the Warrior and the Maiden made one flesh.” His eyes are wild and his grin is wild; he is a wild ghost as the words tumble from him. “We're going to marry.” He pulls Brienne against him. His skin is warm. “I'll beg my wife to throw me over her shoulder and carry me to our room.” His voice is low and hot in her ear. “Then I'll fuck her gorgeous cunt with my tongue until I know how delicious she is when she comes. Five times.” 

Clearly, he has put a great deal of thought into this particular scenario. 

His stubble is rough on her neck, and Brienne shudders as he nips it gently. “Then,” Jaime says, “I'll fuck her until we can barely walk.” With a shaky breath, he rests his head on her shoulder. He chuckles, and it's a bit hysterical. “Gods, I should die more often.”

Within the cloud of Brienne's daze floats a fact. She clings to it. 

“We were already married, Jaime.”

“Brienne. We weren't truly, not then.” Jaime kisses her hand, then looks up at her with a sly grin. “In case you didn't notice, that was a declaration of feelings. I hope it was satisfactory.” He turns her hand to kiss her palm, and she shivers at the feeling of his mouth, the flick of his tongue, warm and wet. “I hope to be far more than satisfactory, for all the rest of our days.”

Now it's Brienne's turn to laugh, with that same tinge of frantic, delirious hysteria. “You are so stupid.”

“And you are my stubborn wife.”

*

As Dany had wanted, the night brings Brienne its cool silver truth, all its stars the sentinels of her heart. Viserion is warm under her, and she is warm in Jaime's arms.

*

She knows him. She wants him. She needs him.

She has him.

He does. He can. 

He will.

*

Their private beach is strewn with pink, white, and yellow flowers, lit candles adding to the light of the sparkling stars and silvery moon.

As seems to be their custom for weddings, they have not changed, wearing their simple daily garb. No deaths have led them to this, and no deaths will follow. There are only the softest truths of their hearts to bear. There is only life, light, and fire, and they are here to fill the night with their joy. 

The stars shine their blessings down upon them, and their trio of dragons spiral across the sky. The starlight's reflection on their scales colours the ocean in silvery reds, greens, whites and golds, scattering across the sea like fireworks. They sit on the beach, watching the yellow candlelight and white moonlight froth in the waves. They are quiet together, in their warmth. 

Jon is the first to speak. “Should we make vows?”

“No,” Jaime says. “We haven't needed them.”

Brienne nods. “I may make my own, for myself. But we don't need them.”

Dany opens the case she brought. “I had these made.” For each of them: a dragonglass dagger, a silver knife, a golden blade.

“Practical,” Brienne says. She smiles. “So we'll be travelling in search of a Valyrian steel sword for you, then?”

Dany grins. “I'll just borrow yours when you're not looking.” 

*

After her fifth orgasm, Brienne shoves Jaime's head from between her thighs.

He wipes his mouth and grins. 

Pressing her down into the bed, he breathes hotly into her ear. 

“Honey and salt.”

*

After her fifth orgasm, Dany pulls Jon's head from between her legs.

She rolls him over and straddles him.

She fucks him hard into their bed, gasping into his ear all she burns to do with all of them.

*

The morning dawns bright and new, and the day passes, couples warm in sleep. 

And matters other than sleep.

*

The day's bright blue skies fade into the deeper blue of late afternoon, and Oberyn summons them to meet with him.

“We worked with Jon and Dany to outfit you with quarters suitable for your new arrangement.” He gestures to their private building. “This is one of our gifts to you, for your wedding and for your service.” It is all arches and curves, red and yellow brick. The hot pool cycles constantly with fresh water. The large bedroom is designed for more than two, with a bed bigger than any Jon's ever seen; his cheeks warm at the possibilities. There will be time enough for that later, and so, reluctantly, he returns his attention to the current moment. 

Oberyn gestures to the table, laden with enough wine and food for the grandest of wedding feasts. Beside their feast stands a jug of steaming water, along with a package of yellow-green powder. 

“I don't suppose you've given any thought to children?” 

Jon looks at them, and they look at each other. They shake their heads. 

“I think,” Jon says, “we'll have our hands full with the dragons.” 

Oberyn nods. “Then you'll each be needing some of this.” He grins. “Have you ever wondered how we do not overrun our fragile desert land?” 

Jaime picks up one of the packages, turning it over in his hand. “This doesn't look like moon tea.” 

“I think more kingdoms would be brought down for this secret than anything else. Luckily, we are well-supplied.” 

Jon has never tasted anything so foul.

*

Under the red-gold light of the setting sun, Jaime and Brienne ready themselves for their second wedding night. 

“I'm to see the Queen,” Jaime says.

“She's no longer Queen, Jaime,” Brienne replies, with her usual matter-of-factness. 

“She's the Queen for me, tonight,” Jaime says. His face is lit with that same delirium, that joyous hysteria. 

His right hand would be shaking, with a sweeter terror. 

He looks up at Brienne, softly stroking her cheek. His mischief is a delight to her now. “You are to be her secret consort, and his.”

“It's an open secret, Jaime.”

“Allow me my fantasies.”

Brienne finishes washing her face and her hands, and adjusts the tie on her robe.

“Wear your sword. The dragonglass, the daggers, all of it.”

“It's just more to take off,” Brienne protests, with a blush.

“It's all you, Brienne, and all of us. It's their wedding night, and ours, as much as yours. It belongs to all of us, as you do. Let them see that.”

Brienne puts it all on then. The strong steel, the polished black glass, the shiny silver, the blazing gold. 

*

They've finished testing the bed, falling into it one by one, Jaime stretching out to take as much space as possible, Brienne curling into a ball in the corner, Jon sitting with Dany, leaning against the headboard. 

Now, they've rearranged themselves, with Jaime in the middle, Dany and Brienne on each side, and Jon holding Dany in his arms. 

Jaime begins to laugh, a soft chuckle that Jon can feel through Dany. 

“What?” Jon asks. 

“My father would be scandalised,” Jaime says, stroking Brienne's shoulder and Dany's arm. “How wonderful.” He's shaking with his amusement. “I don't know how in all the seven hells I'm going to explain this to Tyrion. 'Oh, while you were busy ruling, I died, then almost died, got married to the woman you suspected I would, and I'm also married to the woman whose father I killed and the man whose brother I tried to kill. And there may be a few more dragons in Westeros than you think. Eventually.' ”

Jon's chuckling, too. “It is quite the story.”

“A tale mothers will tell their children,” Dany says. 

Brienne elbows her in the ribs. “Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen!”

“Yes, Lady Brienne of Tarth?” Dany's been spending too much time with Jaime. Of course, the gods made his nature transmissible by resurrection, and activated by sparring. 

“I don't think the mothers of Westeros want to encourage their children to go on our kind of adventures!” 

“Perhaps they'll include the resurrection bit without the marriage bit, then.” Jon rubs Dany's shoulders. “And only a few dragons. Obtained the normal way.”

“In a few centuries, a mad maester will unearth the truth of this tale,” Dany intones. “And she—yes, she, because by then the bloody Citadel will allow women—will be cast out for her insanity.” 

“Oh, it won't be because of the tale's naughty parts?” Jaime asks, with a grin. “I'd rather enjoy having those immortalised. In fact, I'd say our future maester should be celebrated.”

Brienne punches him in the arm. “Being married to three smart people hasn't made you any less stupid, I see.” 

Jaime rubs at the bruise and affects a pout. His pout turns to a soft smile. “What she doesn't realise,” he says, drawing Brienne to him and resting his head on her shoulder, “is that she calls me stupid because she l--”

Brienne turns in his grasp and claps her hand over Jaime's mouth. “You're not to say those words.” Her eyes are wide; before she returns her attention to Jaime, they dart to Jon. In their blue, Jon sees what Brienne will not. 

Jaime pulls Brienne's hand away from his mouth. “You don't think now's a good time to discuss such things?"

He holds her like a fragile bird.

Jaime and Brienne might as well be alone, for all the delicacy of his focus, the softness in his eyes, the way he's moved their hands to rest on his heart. 

Jon and Dany share a smile at his tenderness. Dany rests her head on Jon's shoulder, and draws his hands to her heart. He feels it beat, steady and resilient. “Would it have been different, do you think,” she says, “if I had resisted you?” 

“I hope you would've made the same choice every time, Your Grace,” Jon says, and smiles when Dany rolls her eyes at the title. “I hope Brienne chooses well. We convinced her, as much as we could.”

Jaime's tone is one of total exasperation. Their hands are still on his heart. “By all the gods, woman, and whatever demons the Dornish bloody well worship, you are my wife. Ever since I leapt into battle with you, you have been my l--”

Brienne tackles him, and they roll to the other side of the bed. There's a scuffle. Jaime emerges, laughing, with Brienne under him. He bends to her ear and whispers. When he pulls her up with him, her eyes are alight with the same brightness Jon has seen after her victories in battle, augmented with something new and sparkling. 

Dany brings the platter of food and wine, placing it on the table beside the bed. She pours each of them a cup. She drinks hers, hands them their cups, and crawls onto the bed, wrapping her arms around their shoulders. “You can discuss such things without ever saying the words. Not saying the words doesn't mean it's not true.”

Jon drinks his wine, then gets up to inspect the oils that have been set out for them. He sniffs at them, then chooses one smelling of orange and lavender. He kneels beside Dany on the bed, trails a finger down the back of her neck, and feels her tremble. The oil is smooth on his palms as he rubs it in, and as it warms, the room is filled with the fruity, floral scent. “You don't have to use words to show what you feel,” he says, beginning to massage Dany's shoulders. “There are other ways.” 

“Since you seem so sure,” Dany says, “why don't you show us what you mean?”


	15. Volcanic

“Dany and I thought you might like to learn something from us,” Jon begins. 

Jaime sighs. “I think we've all learned enough for a while, don't you? I would like to enjoy my marriage. This bed, especially.” 

“This could be something interesting, Jaime,” Brienne says. 

“We think it is,” says Dany. “During the winter, when Jon and I were fighting, we were often too occupied for normal conversation. We developed a way of speaking without words.”

“For all the years the war went on, we certainly had enough time to work with each other,” Jon says.

“And you want us to learn, too.” Brienne looks intrigued. 

Jaime nods. “It's a good idea. We'll have our hands full with the dragons soon enough. There will be days we don't get a chance to get a word in with each other. We need a way to pass messages on quickly and silently.”

Dany smiles. “I'm glad you both agree.” She's leaning back in Jon's arms, and he can smell the sweetness of the oils in her hair. “But there will be no language lessons in our bed.” She tries to look stern, but her smile peeks out. 

Jon inhales her scent, and runs his fingers through her hair. “What kind of lessons then, my Queen? I was thinking we should make use of the bath. We are likely to end the night less clean than we started.” 

Brienne sits in Jaime's lap, her once-pale skin turning a soft pink. “I think that would be a good idea.” Her voice is still shaky, though she is settling into acceptance. 

“Do you?” she asks Brienne, and Dany's eyes are on her, the deepest violet Jon's ever seen, the sun easing itself into night's embrace. “I hope this means we'll be allowed to look.” 

Jon watches the soft pink of Brienne's skin turn to flaming red. 

“Would it please you,” Jaime says, nuzzling Brienne's shoulder, his eyes hot on Dany, “if I acted jealous?” 

Jon's grin is wide. “I can act jealous, too, Jaime.” He growls softly and bites the back of Dany's neck. “Mine.” 

Dany shivers and lets out a soft moan, then begins to laugh. “You two. Just get our bath ready and take off your clothes for us already. Let me see to Brienne.” Dany extricates herself from Jon's embrace and crawls over to Brienne, wrapping her arms around her. 

Jaime has his arms around them both now. “I wish I could stay to help, but I have orders from my Queen. She'll surely punish me if I don't follow them.” He grins and follows Jon into the anteroom adjacent to the hot pool. It is as lushly appointed as the rest of their chambers, with all manner of soaps, oils, and other interesting implements. 

“Oberyn and Ellaria thought of everything,” Jaime says, running a length of silk rope between his fingers. He turns to regard Jon with seriousness. “I won't ever be jealous. I wouldn't have agreed to this if I thought we would have that problem.”

Jon extends his hand to Jaime and they shake. “We're married. We decide what that means.”

Jaime gathers bottles of scented oil and walks to the steaming pool. “I think it means we do whatever we please.” 

Jon picks a few soaps at random, lemon and orange, mint and lavender. He lays them out on the edge of the pool, along with a pitcher. “I'm not jealous either. Though I think our wives might enjoy that game, as long as they know we'd never actually be jealous.”

“Something more advanced for later, I think. Brienne is...” Jaime smiles with fond affection. 

“Lovely.” 

Jaime adds the oils to the steaming water, drop by drop, and the air is full of the deepest summer, hypnotic and musky. He arranges the towels in a pile. “And shy, as you've noticed. I have plans for her.”

*

When they return to the bedroom, Dany is perched on Brienne's lap with Brienne's hands in hers, whispering soft things in her ear. Brienne's soft laughter is punctuated by the quietest gasps and moans, which she tries to muffle in Dany's neck. The ties on Brienne's robe are loose, and Dany's shift is askew. 

Jaime sighs. “Well, aren't they just beautiful.” His fond look turns devilish. “Do you think Dany's talking about Brienne's cunt? Please tell me she's talking about Brienne's cunt.” 

It's Jon's turn to jab someone in the ribs. With Jaime in his life, his elbow will be getting much more of this particular use. “You'd think we hadn't heard you scream about it all of yesterday.” 

“Ow!” Jaime yelps. “Screaming isn't the same as talking. Besides, we can have endless conversations on the subject. Something for a topic of our silent language.” 

Jon rolls his eyes. “Let us attend to our wives, shall we?” 

*

Jon pulls Dany into his lap. He twines a strand of her silver hair around his finger. “Do you remember when we defeated the first band of wights?” 

Dany nods, grinning. She looks up at him, her eyes sunlit violets. His desert witch must be Dany, in her Dothraki form. “It was so cold, and we were in battle for so long, we couldn't feel our hands or feet.”

Jon trails his mouth over Dany's collarbone. “But we were victorious.” 

Dany clutches at his hair. “I was twice victorious.”

“I learned the true meaning of battle lust that night.” 

“You're thinking of something, Jon.”

He kisses her bare shoulder, near one of the ties on her shift. “It was so cold we couldn't use our hands, either.” He scrapes his teeth along her skin. “You tasted so good that night, your neck, your shoulders, your mouth, your--”

She kisses him hard then, biting softly at his lip. When she pulls away, her eyes are dark, his beautiful moonlit desert witch of a wife. “We need a bath, Jon. And I do recall asking you to strip for me.”

“That might have to wait.” 

Jaime is thoroughly naked, striding towards the bath with Brienne, her robe pushed down to expose her pale breasts with their dark, delicately pink nipples. Jon's mouth waters, and he fumbles at their clothes. “Gods, Dany, we need to get these off.”

“She never told me they looked like that,” Dany says, her voice hoarse. “She just laughed when I asked how they tasted.”

They are nearly naked now, and blood rushes from Jon's head as he stands. “You're killing me, Daenerys.” 

“It's Brienne who'll be the death of us all, and she doesn't even realise it.” 

*

Jon tries to cool his ardour as they make their way to the pool. He could take Dany in the softness of their bed, tear her clothes off with his teeth, worship her soft wet silver-haired cunt with his fingers and tongue until she begs him to stop, but those are things for later. Tonight is for exploring what they can all do together, on this first delightful night in their delightfully unique marriage. 

It seems Jaime has the same idea, for he's standing with Brienne in a corner of the bath, the hot water bubbling and steaming around them. He holds her hand in his. His voice is very soft, and his stump strokes carefully at her hip.

Jon and Dany slide into the water beside them.

Brienne's eyes are soft as they graze over Dany's neck, Jon's chest, and Jaime's wrists. “We made our vows without knowing it.” 

Dany's hand goes to her neck, and Jon watches her touch the band of raised, lightly pink and shiny tissue above her collarbone, scored like dragonscales. Jon presses his lips to the scars, letting his beard abrade the skin there. Dany shivers. Her fingers splay out over Jon's chest, caressing the puckered, circular wound over his heart. 

Brienne cradles Jaime's hand and stump in hers. She brushes her thumb gingerly around the raised tissue on his wrists, and brings them to her mouth, one at a time. 

Jon smiles at them both. “This is why we don't need to say the words.” 

Jaime brushes his hand over Brienne's chest, each jagged mark receiving the same gentle touch. “These are our words.” 

*

The water is hot and soothing as Dany pours it over his head. She takes one of the soaps, the minty one, and rubs it between her hands, bringing up a thick lather. As she smooths the lather into his hair, Jon watches Brienne do the same thing with Jaime. They scrub each other's scalps quietly. Dany's gentle fingers rub circles on his scalp. Her movements, the sharp mint of the soap, and the bathwater's musk, lull him into a soft trance. He has not felt this relaxed since the cave with Ygritte, and he was a very different man then. That man was only just beginning to understand the nature of compassion for his enemy, and it had been a path fraught with the deepest frost. Now, he is warm inside and out, and feels Ygritte's kind regard. 

He has so much more now than a bare cave and a frozen soul in the middle of the deepest winter he'd ever known; he has Daenerys, and Brienne, and Jaime, and he returns his attention to them, to the moment that calls to him with its warmth. He coats his hands in lavender soap, and washes Dany, diving under the water to tickle her feet with his nose, scraping his beard along the backs of her legs, making her jump and let out a soft laugh, pressing light kisses to the curves of her buttocks and lower back, trailing soap up her spine. He washes her hair, behind her ears, her neck, gently rubbing the scar tissue there, the bones of her collarbone. She sighs in pleasure and moves to float on her back. He puts his arms underneath to hold her, and watches as her nipples tighten in the cooler air. He turns her to sit in his arms and takes one in his mouth, sucking gently, letting his teeth just graze the surface. 

Dany moans, and Jon hears Brienne moan behind him. He turns to see Jaime lifting his head from Brienne's breast, chuckling. “We had the same idea, I see.” 

Dany looks to Brienne, whose eyes are dark, shot through with sparks of silver. “I have another idea. Come here, Brienne.” She extends her hand, and Brienne clasps it shyly.

Jaime has the other in his own. “I don't seem to recall wife-stealing in our vows,” he says, with a teasing grin.

“It's not stealing, Jaime, if you enjoy it,” Dany says. Jaime lets go, and Dany pulls Brienne to stand next to her and Jon. “And I intend to see that you do.” 

“Oh, well then.” Jaime looks at both women appraisingly. “Do continue, my Queen.” 

Dany gets up out of the bath, passing them towels. “I think we're clean enough now, and our bed is far more comfortable for certain activities, wouldn't you agree?” Her mouth is warm on Jon's as they rub themselves down, and she gives him a lingering kiss with the smallest amount of bite. She takes Jon's hand in hers, Brienne's in the other, and they pad out of the bath. 

Jaime follows close behind. “I feel left out.” He nudges at Brienne with his nose like the strangest horse Jon's ever seen, and Dany's laugh is soft in Jon's ear. 

Jon's already half-hard when Dany pushes him down onto the bed, but his cock leaps to full attention when she pulls Brienne to her, kissing her gently, softly, smoothing the hair behind her ears, nibbling at her lips and neck.

“Do you remember,” Dany asks Brienne, “what I said about their cocks?” 

Brienne makes a strangled noise in the back of her throat. She moves almost imperceptibly against Dany's thigh, wedged as it is between her legs. “But we're not going to...”

“Not yet, not unless you want to.” 

“Not yet, but gods, Dany.” 

Brienne's nails press into Dany's skin, and as Jon imagines trailing his tongue across the marks left there, his hand moves down his stomach, toward his cock, which is harder than it's ever been in his life. 

Jaime wraps around Brienne from behind, squeezing her breasts and grinding into her with a growl. “If there is a discussion going on about my cock, I would like to share it with my wife.” 

“Not yet, Jaime. Brienne and I have work to do.” Dany grins ferally at Jon. “You're more than welcome to watch.” 

Jaime pulls himself away. “Gods, our Queen is a cruel woman,” he mutters. 

“If I were truly cruel, I wouldn't let you touch yourself, but I'd make you watch.” 

Jaime growls low in his throat. His hand moves to his cock, and Dany takes Brienne's hand. “I think we've made Jon wait long enough.”

Jon is weak with desire, and his smile reflects his weakness. “I'm a patient man.” 

Brienne's calloused palm is warm on him, and his hips jerk upwards, where he meets Dany's hot, wet mouth and tongue. She presses a single kiss to the tip of his cock, and he groans. Dany kneels beside him and lets her hair drape over her shoulders to brush against his chest. It's soft and slightly damp from the bath, and feels deliciously cool on his nipples. 

She puts her hand over Brienne's own, guiding her. “Delicate, but firm.” They're both breathing hard as they watch their hands move, lips parted and wet, cheeks flushed. Their slow strokes are agony, and Jon squeezes his eyes shut, thrusting his hips upward. Gods, he needs more. 

He feels an arm clamp down on his hips, heavy and strong. Brienne. There's a warmth stretching out beside him, and she smells of desert musk. Brienne is still moving her hand on him, when Dany presses her hot mouth to his ear. “You're not going to come unless it's in my mouth.” 

His voice is low and hoarse. “As my Queen desires.” 

Dany looks up at Brienne. “I think Jaime needs you.” 

Jaime's hand is moving on his cock as slowly as theirs were on Jon's, and he looks as blissfully tortured. “Come here, Brienne, gods, I always need you.”

Brienne crawls over to Jaime and he pulls her to him. She moans when he puts their hands on his cock and begins to move them in that same slow rhythm. “Jaime.”

Dany sits astride Jon, and he moves his hips to feel the wet folds of her cunt, swollen and hot, against him. “I could come inside you instead.” 

She presses the length of her body against him, growling fiercely in his ear. She jerks his head up by his hair, and he hisses at the delicious pain. “No. You'll come in my mouth or you won't come at all.” 

“I think you got some of my wolf blood.” 

She answers that with another growl, sucking and biting her way down his chest, brushing her soft hair against his stomach. When she lightly bites his inner thigh he sucks his breath through his teeth. The desert witch has cursed him to wait, and no amount of pleading with her will change her mind. But he'll try. 

“Daenerys. Please, just--” 

She takes him into her mouth, sucking him deep. 

“I can't, gods, Dany--”

When she moves her mouth on him, it is nothing like Brienne's light touch. It is fast and hard, an insistent demand that he come. There is nothing left for him to do but obey. 

“Gods, Dany, fuck--”

His hands pull at her hair and his back arches and his body convulses as his seed fills her mouth, and the moon's brightness fills his vision.

*

Dany brings a basin of hot water and cloths to the table beside the bed, and Jon can smell the scent of oranges and lemons as she tenderly washes him, wipes the sweat from his brow, his chest, his stomach, caresses his thighs with the cloth, and gently between them. 

Jaime passes a cloth to Brienne. He's still breathing hard, and another layer of blush paints itself on Brienne's face when he moves the cloth, and her hand, between his legs. “Really, Lady Brienne, what did you two mean with that talk about our cocks?” 

Jon didn't think it was possible for Brienne's face to turn nearly purple, but it does.

Before she can open her mouth to respond, Dany speaks. “If Brienne decides the particular subject we were discussing is something she would like, then we will discuss it with you. But not until then.” She grins at Jaime. “You're jealous.”

He cocks an eyebrow at her. “Curiosity isn't jealousy.”

Dany's hands rest lightly on Brienne's shoulders. “Does it please you, my beautiful wife, that your husband is curious about us?”

Brienne's face grows only darker with the heat of her blush.

*

Dany weaves flowers into a crown for Jon. He prefers this to a circlet of gold; it smells better, and weighs less. It was wrought under far more pleasant circumstances, and he will welcome the duties attached to it for the rest of his life. 

“Where's mine?” Jaime asks, with a disgruntled look. 

Dany grins at him. “You'll have yours soon enough, Kingslayer.” 

“A crown of flowers for the man least likely to ever be a king.”

Brienne pulls Jaime to her. “We wouldn't have it any other way.”


	16. Molten

“We should eat,” Dany says, laying the platter of food and wine out on the bed. “Here.” She passes them each a robe of fine silk. “They really did think of everything.” 

Brienne is warm in Jaime's arms, and he strokes her shoulder as she reaches for a cube of cheese. He sips at his wine and munches on slices of meat, while Brienne nibbles on candied nuts piled neatly on a plate at her feet. 

Jon pulls the crown from his hair, placing it on the table, then wraps his arms around Dany. He lifts his chin, and in a ponderous voice, he says, “The king needs energy to rule his kingdom.” 

Dany giggles. “Your kingdom of flowers and wine?” 

He gulps his wine and bites into an olive. Chewing slowly, he says. “My kingdom of wonderful wives.” 

Jaime tilts his head. “What about me?” 

Jon gives Jaime a friendly punch. “Ah, yes,” Jon says. “I married you, too. You may have saved us all from certain death, more than once, and got us here safely, but I see the way you look at my wife.” 

Jaime grins. “I see the way you look at mine. We should look at each other's wives. We should do more than look.” 

Brienne smiles at them both. She walks to the large bay window, opening it, and her robe flutters in the wind. The sun is falling behind grassy plains and rolling sand dunes. In the darkening sky, the evening star rises. Brienne watches it sparkle, this symbol of her house; now, she is building a home of her own. Jaime and Jon rest their heads on her shoulders, wrapping her in their arms. Dany takes her hand.

They watch the star glow on the horizon.

Jon's voice is soft. “Look how bright she grows.” 

“The hidden beauty of all the stars,” Dany says, and kisses Brienne's hand. 

“The sun's secret maiden.” Jaime's tone is warmly teasing. “So shy, she comes out only at dusk and dawn, drawn by the warmth of his desire.” His lips graze the skin behind her ear.

“I'm not a maiden, Jaime,” Brienne says. He had made very sure of that. 

“You are to us,” Jon says. 

Dany interlaces her fingers with Brienne's. “Our very own.” She strokes each finger, gently, softly. “We can show you how you are ours.” Her lips are warm and wet on Brienne's wrist. “Would that please you?”

Brienne swallows, then nods. 

Two pairs of arms sweep her up, stripping off her robe. The warm breeze from the window blows sweetness onto her skin.

“What are you doing?”

Jaime laughs. “We never got a chance to have the kind of bath I wanted. I believe some silly woman,” he nudges her in the ribs, “was trying to convince us that an engagement would be ideal.” 

“Can you believe that?” Jon asks. “An engagement. Ridiculous.” 

They let Brienne gently down into the water, then lower themselves in, shucking their robes as they go. Dany comes back from the anteroom with an assortment of powders and soaps. She sprinkles something purple into the bath, and the water fizzes, smelling of lilacs.

Brienne reaches for a green cake of soap, but Jaime catches her wrist. “No.”

“No?”

“No.” He smiles. “Let us tend to you.”

“Close your eyes.” Jon's voice is soft in her ear. 

Brienne's eyes flutter shut. The bath is quiet, but for the sounds of the fizzing, bubbling water and their breathing. She smells Jon's green-smoke scent, Dany's floral fire, and Jaime's piney musk. Dany's slender fingers comb gently through her hair. Jon and Jaime tilt her head back. A hot waterfall cascades over Brienne's head and down her back, and she shivers with delight. Jon and Dany hold her while Jaime soaps her hair, lathering her scalp with the delicate touch of his orange-scented fingertips. Jon carefully washes her neck and shoulders, while Dany's arms gently encircle her waist. 

“I had a handmaiden who used to do this for me,” Dany says. 

“She'd make herself into three different people?” Jaime's tone is amused.

“Jaime,” Jon says. 

“You're so stupid,” says Dany.

Brienne grins. “Thank you for saying it this time, Daenerys.” 

Jaime's voice is bright. “If we already know what it means, no one needs to say it.” 

Jaime rinses Brienne's hair, and she sighs at the feel of the hot water. His tone turns lascivious. “I don't think Dany's handmaidens were ever thinking about how best to fuck her brains out.”

The last time Jaime had spoken that way, he had come to Brienne from death. He had been alive, and she had been a ghost in her unkind world. Her ghost had been her grief; her regard for him had been a killing blade. She had taken her tears within herself, and they had given shape to her shade. 

Now, every touch tells her she is not a ghost.

Brienne's joy catches in her throat. Tears wet her lashes, and she tries to blink them away. 

They drip slowly onto Jaime's arm. 

“Have I hurt you?” he asks.

Brienne shakes her head. Her tears fall like summer rain. 

Jaime brushes them away, and Jon and Dany hold her. 

All Brienne can think to say is, “We're alive. I'm happy.”

“As long as we haven't hurt you,” says Dany. She kisses one of Brienne's tears. 

Jon wipes Brienne's cheek tenderly. “It wouldn't do to make our maiden cry.”

Brienne takes each of their hands in turn and presses them, shakily, to her mouth.

They hold her in their arms.

As Brienne's shaking subsides, Jaime says, “It would be much better to make her scream.” 

Her throat goes dry. “If I,” Brienne starts, then swallows. “If I wanted...”

“Brienne?” Dany's look inflames her. Brienne's burning up with it, Dany's blood of old Valyria.

“What we discussed before. If I -- if I was thinking, it might -- I might -- how would it work?” 

“Well,” Dany says, “you would need to be prepared.” 

“Prepared?” 

“They're not small, our husbands.” Dany gives Jon and Jaime appraising looks. “They're certainly larger than average.” 

“I would say so!” Jaime looks offended. “Don't mention me and 'average' in the same sentence!” 

“I haven't heard Dany complain about me,” Jon says, with a quiet smile. 

Dany traces her fingers along Brienne's side. “I don't have a cock for you, but four fingers will feel quite large.” 

At that, Brienne closes her eyes and groans, clenching. 

“If I take your meaning,” Jaime says, his cheeks pinking, “We're all going to...”

Dany grins. “Yes.”

“At the same time.” He's breathing hard now.

“Are you sure, Brienne?” Jon asks. Sweat is beading at his hairline, and his eyes are dark.

“We don't have to,” Dany says, licking the shell of Brienne's ear. “There are so many ways for us to please you.”

Jaime takes her in his arms from the front, rubbing his stubble against her collarbone and pressing his mouth to her throat. She shudders at the scratchy warmth, the hot wetness on her skin. “Tell us what you'd like, Brienne. It's all for you.” 

“I would like this.”

Jaime leaps from the bath, racing towards the bedroom. 

Brienne laughs, easing herself from the water. “I think he feels guilty.”

Jon chuckles. 

“Guilty?” Dany quirks a brow, shouldering on her robe.

“He was very ... eager on our wedding night.”

Jon squeezes her shoulder. “You were going to keep him waiting for a month, Brienne.”

Brienne blushes and says nothing. 

*

Jaime's remade the bed with sheets of dark blue silk, and they're covered in tiny white flowers, a strange edible variety Oberyn left for them. They're soft, with a spicy perfume. Brienne tries one. It is sweet and rich on her tongue, like the finest chocolate. 

A vase of flowers sits on the table, along with bottles of plain and perfumed oil. Dany sits beside Jaime and takes some flowers from the vase. Her fingers fly, and a few moments later, she holds up her creation. 

“Our maiden needs a crown.” 

Dany chose the blue ones, of course. Brienne ducks her head, and Dany places the crown lightly in her hair, giving Brienne a gentle kiss. 

“I think our husbands have the right idea.” 

They're pouring wine. The white is smooth on Brienne's tongue, warming her. The light of the evening star is bright within her heart. She sinks into the softness of the bed, feeling her eyes close and her muscles relax. 

There's a hand underneath her robe, stroking her shoulder.

Jaime's voice is soft. “Don't fall asleep on us.” 

“I'm not going to sleep, Jaime.” 

Jon stretches out beside her. “I have a proven method of making sure defiant maidens like ours will only sleep after they've been satisfied.”

Dany sits down beside Jon, running her fingers through his hair. “You wouldn't do that to our Brienne.” She's trying not to laugh. 

“I would.” 

Jon sits on Brienne, and tickles her lightly, at her side, underneath her robe. 

She yelps. “Jon!”

Brienne jerks up at his touch, and when her hips buck, Jon shudders. He bears her back down onto the bed by her wrists, scraping his beard along her neck. She shivers at its roughness. 

Jaime moves to her side, pressing the whole length of his body against her. He reaches his arm around her to roll her nipple between his fingers, biting at her neck and grinding against her. 

“Jon, Jaime, please, I just--”

Their weights lift up and away from her, and Dany's stern voice echoes.

“Gentlemen!” 

Brienne sits up, and covers her mouth to suppress her laughter. 

Dany has them both by the hair. 

“We just...” Jaime is grinning.

“She's just so lovely, you know.” Jon's grinning, too. 

Dany lets them go, and they rub their heads, still grinning. 

Brienne smiles. “I didn't mind, Daenerys.” 

“If she minded, she could throw us across the room.” Jaime's gaze burns her.

“You'll ruin her crown.” Dany takes it out of Brienne's hair and places it on the table. “She needs to be well-prepared. And relaxed. And since you've both already come once tonight, let's not have that happen sooner than it needs to.” 

“Well, aren't you bossy,” Jaime says. “I think I can control when I come, thank you.”

“We'll see about that,” Dany replies, and there's a gleam in her eye.

“My wife, the queen of our marriage bed,” says Jon  


Dany and Brienne share a smile.

Dany passes Jon and Jaime each a bottle of oil. 

“What are your orders, my Queen?” asks Jon.

“We are to help our wife relax.” She takes a bottle for herself. “I hope such relaxation will allow discussion of the evening's possibilities.” 

They peel off their robes, tossing them to the side of the bed. Brienne sits between Jaime's legs, Jon on one side and Dany on the other. 

They pour the oil out onto their hands, and the air is redolent with the smell of spices and citrus. Jon and Dany press their fingers gently into her shoulders, easing the knots there, while Jaime works the kinks from the muscles along her spine.

Brienne shivers with their touches, and a warm ease falls over her. 

Dany strokes her hip and moves her hand up Brienne's side, to run a single finger underneath Brienne's breast. Brienne gasps and jumps. 

“Mmm,” Jaime says. “Is it time for that discussion now, do you think?” 

“What kind of preparation would please you, Brienne?” Jon's voice is gravelly. 

“Tongue,” Dany licks Brienne's neck, “or fingers, first?” She cups Brienne's breast, gently pinching her nipple.

Brienne is hoarse. “I don't know.” 

Jon bites her neck, kissing the marks he leaves there. “You need to be,” he licks and sucks at her skin, “wetter than you've ever been.”

Brienne arches her back, moaning, and Jon and Jaime grind into her.

“We need to relax you from the inside.” Jaime squeezes her hip. “Your beautiful cunt needs to be so ready that you're begging for all of us.” 

“We want to please you, sweet maiden.” Dany's voice is a hoarse whisper as she grinds herself against Brienne's side. “Are you thinking of us now, moving inside you?” 

“Dany...”

Jaime pulls her roughly to him, cupping her breast and pinching her nipple. He growls in her ear. “Mine. Ours. Fingers or tongue first?”

“Fingers, Jaime, please...”

Dany reaches for the bottle of oil. 

Jaime presses himself against her, brushing her mouth with his own, biting her lip, digging his nails into her side. He bites her neck, growling, and Brienne moans. 

Dany rolls Brienne's nipples, and Brienne cries out sharply at the pinch of pleasurable pain. 

Jon scrapes his beard down her stomach, dipping his tongue into her navel. She sucks her breath through her teeth. 

Dany runs her hand down Brienne's back and squeezes softly at her buttocks. A single small finger traces along Brienne's inner thigh, and Jon runs his hand along the side of her other leg.

Jaime growls into her neck and puts his mouth on her again, running the flat of his tongue from her collarbone to her navel. He gets up and moves around Dany, spreading Brienne's legs to kneel with one of Brienne's between his. 

Jaime traces a single finger up the seam of her cunt, and every beat of Brienne's blood pulses between her legs. She tightens. His finger moves up, then down again, softly, so softly and gently. Her hips move with his hand. 

“Look at you,” he says. 

Jaime's still moving his finger. Dany joins him, then Jon. Three fingers gently, slowly, agonisingly trace the same path. Every bit of Brienne will melt in the fires of Valyria, so torturous are their touches. 

“Dany,” she says. “Jon, Jaime, I need...”

They spread her open, and Dany applies that same gentle, torturous touch to her nub, stroking lightly. Brienne cries out with every touch, her eyes squeezed shut, her hips jerking. Jon strokes inside one of the lips of her cunt with a single finger. Jaime presses the other between his thumb and forefinger, gently at first, then with increasing pressure. Brienne growls low in her throat. Jon traces his finger around her entrance, and Brienne thrusts against it. 

“Jon, just...”

Jaime's finger traces there, too, and Dany's. Brienne pleads with them. 

Dany pours a generous amount of oil into her palm and rubs it over her fingers. Jon and Jaime do the same. 

Jaime palms Brienne's cunt, pressing the heel of his hand into her nub. She moans, grinding up against his hand. “Please, Jaime, I need...”

Jaime presses himself against her. He puts his lips to her ear. “You're so beautiful when you beg.” 

He slides the tip of his finger slowly inside her, growling against her throat. “Mine. Ours.” 

Jon rubs Brienne's nub in circles with his thumb, sliding the tip of his finger inside. “Mine. Ours.”

“Mine and ours,” Dany says, and she presses Brienne's nub between her thumb and finger, and presses her finger inside. 

Brienne rocks her hips, urging them deeper, and they press into her. “More, please...”

Each press of another finger is just as slow and requires just as much pleading, and Brienne is writhing in desperation by the time they're at four fingers each. They thrust against her as slowly as they did with only one. 

“Please, I need you, please, I can't...”

Finally, their fingers move in her in earnest. 

Brienne pulls Jaime against her and digs her nails into his back, biting his shoulder, whimpering, cursing and blessing all the gods that made them, and thrusting shamelessly against their hands.

“I need you, please...”

They press deeper, harder, deeper, then up, hard, from inside.

She comes with a gasping, guttural cry torn from the back of her throat. 

*

Brienne slowly returns to herself.

Three mouths are on her, hot and wet.

Dany's lips are on her neck, and Brienne hisses as Dany suckles at the sensitive skin there. Jaime's mouth is on her nipple, and Brienne moans when he scrapes his teeth across it. Jon's tongue trails up her leg from the inside of her knee to her inner thigh, and she lets out a deep sigh. 

Dany and Jaime move to either side of her and bear her down into the bed. Dany makes circles in Brienne's navel with her tongue, and Jaime presses gentle kisses onto her stomach. 

Something light and soft falls on her skin. Jon's sprinkling flowers over her breasts and stomach. He lets them fall between her legs, catching in the hair there. 

Jaime grins. “Such a treasure needs the finest decoration.” 

“And the finest worship,” Dany says, nuzzling at one of Brienne's breasts. She takes a flower into her mouth, chewing and swallowing, before pressing kisses to Brienne's skin. “Delicious.”

Dany circles a nipple with her tongue, and Brienne arches her back, gasping.

Jaime and Jon are watching them, eyes wildfire-bright and night-black. 

“Yes,” Jon says hoarsely. “Delicious.” 

“There's something else delicious I want,” says Jaime, cupping Brienne's cunt with his palm and giving it a gentle squeeze. 

Brienne pushes herself into his hand. “Jaime.”

“We all want a taste,” Jon says, smiling. “Don't take it all for yourself.” 

Dany laughs. “You are jealous.” 

Jaime rests Brienne's legs on his shoulders. Welcome to the finest feast in Westeros.” He places a soft kiss on Brienne's inner thigh. “Sweeter than the ripest fruit and richer than the reddest wine.” 

Brienne snorts. “Jaime, you're so--”

“Stupid,” Dany finishes. 

“And yours.” Jaime reaches under Brienne's leg to take Dany's hand in his, caressing it gently.

“Thank the gods we married such a flexible woman,” Jon says, as he ducks under Brienne's leg. 

Dany splays herself out on Brienne's stomach, and blows a breath on the hair between her legs, making Brienne's hips jerk. 

“And eager,” Jaime says. He presses a kiss onto her cunt, and she moans. 

“Very eager,” Jon says, licking her inner thigh. 

“Should we tease her a bit?” Dany's tone is playful. “She seemed to like it.”

“She did beg ever so prettily,” Jon says, with a wicked grin. 

Brienne puts a hand in Dany's hair and tugs. “I'm right here.” 

Jaime licks along the seam of her cunt. “Yes, you're right here.”

His tongue is so hot, and so wet. She moans.

“And here,” he licks lightly inside her, and she thrusts against his mouth. 

“And here.” He touches the tip of his tongue to her nub. 

“Jaime.”

“Yes?” He laughs against her, and the vibration makes her arch up against him.

“Please.”

Dany spreads her open and takes Brienne's nub fully into her mouth, sucking in deep pulses, with the barest scraping of teeth.

Brienne cries out, arching her back. Her fists clench at the sheets as her hips thrust to meet Dany's rhythm. 

There's a weight on her legs. 

Jon and Jaime hold her down while Dany sucks at her, and she feels the warm wetness of two tongues circling her entrance, dipping slowly, carefully inside. She pushes at them, and the air fills with her gasping cries. 

They adjust their rhythm to match Dany's, and each pulse of their tongues pushes them deeper inside her. She cries out. They move faster against her, Dany's mouth so hot on her, their tongues working her. They thrust deep, and Dany sucks harder. Brienne's hips buck to meet them as their tongues move inside her, filling her with their wet heat. They push deep inside, flicking hard against the walls of her cunt. Dany works her nub in a ferocious rhythm, until Brienne is molten in their mouths. Her vision flashes bright with the evening star, and she screams.

Brienne falls back into herself, her breath coming in shuddering gasps. Jaime and Dany wrap themselves around her. Jon lies down beside her, kissing her on the forehead and combing his fingers through her hair. Her breathing slows. They stroke her back and shoulders, and she smells their sweat and musk.

She can feel Jaime hard and hot against her side, and she rubs against him experimentally. He hisses. 

“Don't tease me, Brienne.” His voice is husky in her ear. “I'd rather come inside you.” 

Jon nips at her ear. “Let us feel how hot and wet you are.”

Dany wraps her legs around Brienne, grinding herself slowly against her. “Let us see how much your beautiful cunt can take.” 

“Yes.”

They pull Brienne to her knees. Dany coats her hands, then Jon's cock, with oil. Brienne shivers as Dany's hands move on him, and her breathing quickens as Jaime strokes himself. Jon settles himself between her legs in the front, Jaime sits behind her, and Dany presses herself up against her side. Dany reaches her hand down to Brienne's cunt, rubbing softly. Jaime and Jon thrust slowly against her. Brienne moans.

“Are you thinking about us, how we'll feel inside you?” Dany asks, her finger circling Brienne's nub in time with their thrusts, making her gasp.

“We know you.” Jaime moves against her slowly, tracing her entrance with the head of his cock. He cups her breast, brushing his thumb over her nipple. She thrusts back against him.

“We want you,” Jon says, spreading the lips of her cunt to rub his cock between them, sucking at her collarbone.

Dany rubs Brienne's nub with her thumb, dipping a slender finger inside. “We need you.”

“Please, Brienne,” says Jaime. “Let us have you.”

Brienne spreads her legs wider, and feels Jon and Jaime sliding into her. She moans at the contact of their slick heads against her. Dany adds another finger. 

“Don't stop.”

They rock against her, moving incrementally deeper with each thrust. Dany's thumb still moves against her nub, and she pushes a third finger inside. 

Jon gasps in her ear, groaning and biting her neck, his nails digging into her side. 

Jaime squeezes her breast in his hand, and he gives her nipple a gentle pinch, thrusting more deeply inside of her with a moan. They're slick and hot and hard inside of her and Dany pushes a forth finger inside, and Brienne's pushing against them, drawing them in. 

“More, please...”

They rock slowly, so slowly against her, hot and throbbing inside her. Brienne pushes back against them, her cunt throbbing with each thrust that pulls them back, then deeper into her, then back, and deeper, pushing into her inch by inch, until finally they're all the way inside. She moans at the feel of Jon's pubic hair scraping against her cunt, and Jaime's against her buttocks. Dany rubs herself against Brienne, her cunt wet and hot. She gasps throatily in Brienne's ear as she moves her fingers inside her. 

Brienne thrusts against Jaime and Jon, and they both moan. 

“Harder, Brienne.” Jaime's voice is hoarse in her ear. “Let us feel you, gods.”

“Fuck, Brienne,” Jon growls in her ear. “Harder.”

“Harder,” Dany pleads.

Brienne thrusts against them, clawing at Jon's back and biting his shoulder. They're deep inside her now, and she moans with each thrust. Dany grinds against her, biting her neck, and Brienne moves in tandem with Dany's thrusts, Jaime and Jon moaning as she squeezes them inside her. 

“More,” Jaime pleads. “Don't stop, Brienne, more, please, let us come inside you, fuck.”

Their thrusts are hard and eager now, and Brienne's moans are cries, and all she can feel is hot and slick and hard and wet and Jaime and Jon and Dany--

Her climax crashes over her like a hot wave; she fists her hands in Jon's hair and cries out, gasping in his ear. Dany clenches against her, moaning her own peak in Brienne's ear, and then Jon is growling and filling her with a cry, and Jaime grasps her hips and pulls her against him, moaning and gasping as he comes. 

After a moment, they untangle themselves, and Brienne falls to the bed, breathing hard. She closes her eyes, and after some time her breathing slows to a normal rhythm. She opens her eyes to Dany beside her, gently brushing a washcloth over her face and neck. The cloth is warm, and smells of lavender. Jaime and Jon hold a tray of food and water and more wet cloths. 

“You're not that sore, I hope,” Jon says, kissing her cheek and brushing his fingers gently along her side. 

She does feel sensitive there, now. “A little.” 

They wash her tenderly between her legs. 

Dany puts her arms around Brienne, and offers her a cup of water. Brienne drinks it greedily. They lay her on the bed and feed her fruits from their hands. The red wine they give her to drink makes her feel sleepy, and she yawns. 

“Our maiden needs her rest,” Jaime says, with a soft smile. “I believe our defilement has exhausted her.” 

“That wasn't defilement,” Brienne says, sighing happily. “It was wonderful.”

“Truly?” Dany asks. “We pleased you?” 

“I think all of Westeros knows we pleased her,” Jon says. 

“As it should be,” Jaime says. “She's not theirs to please. She's ours.” He growls possessively and lies down beside her, drawing her to him. 

Jon wraps himself around her.

Dany smiles, and joins them.


	17. Smelted

Jaime lies on the bed, his body loose and warm. Brienne is in his arms, Dany and Jon breathing deeply beside her. He looks to the window, where the evening star has faded into the black depths of the night sky. Their shy maiden has found a home within them, and faded into sleep with the setting of the sun. He gets up quietly, pours four goblets of water, and sets out more nuts and fruit. 

*

It had humbled him, to kill a dead woman with his death.

To starve his heart within the godswood.

To tell a queen of her father.

To ask a dragon for his fire.

To burn red and green.

To birth dragons from his blood.

*

Dany, Jon and Brienne sit on the bed, drinking their water, when he returns. 

“Are you well, Ser Jaime?” Jon asks, with a lopsided grin.

Jaime's smile could split his face in two; the fullness of his heart is better than any hoard of gold. “I am.”

“Are you,” Dany looks pointedly at him, “well?” 

Jon laughs. “Dany. Really? We just...”

“This would be for him, Jon.” 

Brienne sits up, wrapping her arms around Jaime. “I think we just did something for him.”

Jaime turns in Brienne's arms, kissing her fiercely. “That was all for you.” 

Brienne, his beautiful hidden star, still blushes so easily.

“I know what I want,” Jon says. “The energy to fuck my wives again tonight. I need a bath.” He strides off to the bath, goes into the anteroom, and comes back with several lengths of silk rope. Before returning to the bath, he tosses them on the bed. “I noticed that Jaime... noticed these.” 

Dany's eyes are on Jaime, hot violet. “You noticed them, did you?”

He is a Lannister. 

Lannisters do not blush. 

“I did.”

“Brienne?” Dany asks, her voice soft, with a hint of curiosity. 

Brienne is pink. “Dany?”

Dany's voice is teasing. “Did you discuss Jaime's proclivities on your wedding night?” 

“He was rather... intense. There was... little discussion.” Brienne is very red now, and Jaime smiles at the memory of his delicious first taste. 

“Brienne,” Jaime says, “surely you're past blushing now.”

Dany grins. “We did just fuck your brains out.” 

Brienne rolls her eyes. 

She is still red. 

*

“Tell me, Brienne,” Dany asks conversationally, wrapping one of the ties around Jaime's wrist, “how many times did our Kingslayer,” and now her voice is warmly fond, “make you come on your wedding night?” 

She runs her hand through his hair, pulling at it gently, and the spark of pain across his scalp makes him hiss with the pleasure of it.

“Seven,” Brienne answers, red down to her toes. She takes the other length of silk from Dany, her hands trembling.

Jaime leans his head against Dany's hand, grinning up at them both. “Five with my mouth, once with my fingers, and once with my cock,” he says, proudly. Dany's slender fingers are soft against his scalp. He catches Brienne's eye, then fixes his gaze between her legs. She turns an even deeper red.

“Then that, Kingslayer,” Dany says, “is how many times you will not.”

He sucks in his breath through his teeth. 

Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen needs no Iron Throne.

She has won him. 

Their bed will be her throne.

Dany brushes her lips gently over the scars on each of Jaime's wrists, and she and Brienne tie them to rings on the headboard. “They really did think of everything. Are you comfortable, Jaime?”

He tests his bonds. They are soft, but strong. The bed cradles him. His arms are comfortably positioned. He is, however, becoming quite hard. “You could assist me with the state of my cock, my Queen.” He grins wickedly. 

Dany clamps her hand over his mouth. “You'll speak when I ask. Or will I have to gag you?” 

Jaime purrs against Dany's hand, arching his back, and feels her suppress a shiver. 

From the shelf under the table, she takes out her dagger, placing it on the bed. “In case we need to cut him free.”

Or for other, more prurient reasons, he hopes. 

Dany eyes go to his mouth, and darken. They are the violets of his spring. 

“I have not yet kissed my second husband.” 

Jaime could say many things about that. He opens his mouth, and Brienne glares at him. Dany arches an eyebrow. He closes his mouth. 

“How does he like to be kissed, Brienne?” Dany asks her. 

Brienne blushes. Of course she blushes. 

“I don't,” she begins, “how does,” she stutters, “we just...” she trails off, turning yet another delightful shade of red. A significant benefit of this marriage: his lovely wife turning new shades of red he never could've imagined. 

Dany takes Brienne's hands in hers. “You are still so shy.” 

Her voice is very gentle. “Surely you can kiss him in front of me, to show me how he likes to be kissed, Brienne. Or should I let you show me in a different way?”

Dany kisses Brienne softly on the edge of her mouth. 

“Both,” Jaime says. Blood rushes to his cock at the thought. “Please?”

Dany pulls his hair, hard. He groans at the spark of gorgeous pain. 

“I don't recall asking you for your thoughts, Kingslayer.” She pulls his hair again. He moans.

“Keep them to yourself while we decide what to do with you.”

Gods, what a game this will be.

“Although,” Dany says, “That is an intriguing prospect. It would please me.”

Brienne smiles shyly.

“Would it please you, Brienne?” Dany asks.

“We could try.” 

Dany crawls up on the bed to sit next to Jaime, and holds out her hand to Brienne. Brienne takes it, and sits down beside her. They're both beside him, so close, the silk of their robes soft on his bare skin. Their bodies so warm as they lean against him.

Dany puts her hands on Brienne's shoulders, her voice low. “The first kiss of your wedding night,” she says, “was it soft?” She kisses Brienne gently, barely touching Brienne's lips with her own. 

Brienne sighs, and so does Jaime, and Brienne looks at him, her eyes wide. 

“Wet?” she asks, and kisses Brienne again, and Jaime bites his lip to see the pink of her tongue press into Brienne's mouth. Brienne utters the smallest of gasps against Dany's mouth. 

“Does he like biting?” Dany asks. She kisses Brienne hard, there's a flash of white teeth, and Brienne moans into Dany's mouth. 

Jaime moans and presses himself against them. 

Dany smiles the smallest smile. “Ah.”

Jaime looks to Dany, hoping his expression is pleading enough. 

“I think there's something he wants, Brienne. Or someone.”

Brienne leans over him, all the strength and heart of her body concentrated in those eyes. Dany watches as she lowers her mouth to his, and it is so warm and new in this world, the world of their bed, of Dany's throne, and he presses himself up against Brienne's mouth with desperation. Slow, and he pulls her lip into his mouth, nibbles, and she moans, and their tongues slide against each other, and he growls into her mouth; slow, and the only point of contact is their mouths, where she is soft and wet and warm and hot and strong against him. 

Then Dany is pulling Brienne back, and Dany's mouth is sharp and hard and soft on his, her tongue piercing into him, and she bites his lip gently, and her kiss is a warm wave of dragonfire that makes him hiss and growl into her mouth. She pulls back, and his breath comes in gasping waves. 

*

Jaime's greatest humility is in this night. 

His heart fed with new blood.

Metal close to his skin.

A blade pressing against his inner thigh, then the hollow of his throat. 

*

To give a maiden what innocence still remains in you.

To lie beneath the Queen's hands, her eyes warm.

To be a willing supplicant.

To let a queen press a blade against your throat and breathe her want into you. 

To pray and beg at a temple made only for you. 

*

Jon returns from the bath, and Dany falls upon him, dragging him to the bed. “You mentioned jealousy,” she says. “Here is someone we can make feel very jealous.” She gathers Brienne to her and kisses her. Brienne gasps, and Jaime's hips jerk with it, the desire that pulses through him in waves, and they're not even touching him. 

“I want you again,” Dany says, gently, to Brienne. “The way we had you, together, with Jon. Jaime can watch.”

“Would this please you?” Dany asks, caressing Brienne's shoulders. “We want only to please you.”

Brienne shivers. “Yes, it would please me. Jaime?”

“Brienne,” Jaime rasps, “I want to watch you with them.”

Dany's arms wrap around Brienne's waist, lowering her to her knees. Jon coats his hand with oil, then passes the bottle to Dany. 

“Gods, I need to be inside you,” Dany says, sliding between Brienne's legs. She palms Brienne's cunt, and Brienne cries out. 

Jon and Jaime groan.

Jaime smells Brienne's sweetness and Dany's softness, and sweat beads on his face. 

*

“Seven hells, Daenerys.” Jaime arches up against his bonds.

“You should've burnt me when we met.”

*

Brienne's throat shudders, her eyes wet. She has Jaime's hand in both of hers and stares at it, the hand that killed the Night Queen. 

Dany strokes Brienne's cheek and asks, softly, “Is this too much?”

“He looked this way after he died,” says Brienne.

She looks as if Jaime is dead.

As if she, and they, have killed him. 

Jon and Dany must see this in her, for they take her gently in their arms. Jaime squeezes her hand. 

They stay this way for a while, until Brienne dries her eyes and looks to Jaime, who is still holding her hand. 

He smiles. “My stubborn wife.” 

She squeezes his hand, and smiles tremulously down at him. 

Dany runs her hand down Brienne's cheek, then her side, and kisses Brienne with easy sweetness. “My beautiful wife.” 

Jon wraps around Brienne from behind, cupping her breasts in his hands and squeezing gently. He presses his mouth into the back of her neck with a quiet growl. “My warrior wife.” 

Brienne's eyes are dark on Jaime's, and he feels very alive, all the blood in him the hot alloy of their desires. 

For he is not dead, and they have not killed him.

He bares his throat and pleads with Brienne to touch him, to feel his life.

She kisses his neck, licking at the blood and salt there. He bites at her mouth and strokes his tongue against her own. Brienne bites hard at the hollows of his throat, and Dany bends her mouth to his chest to suck and bite at his nipples. She wraps her hand around his cock, and looks at Brienne.

“Have you tasted him yet?”

She's moving her hand on him, slowly, lightly, the barest touch, but he might as well be deep inside her, for all he's pleading with them.

“Dany, Brienne, please...”

Dany pulls her hand away. She grins at Brienne. “You haven't.” 

In Brienne's eyes, midnight begs to stay full of stars.

His stubborn, beautiful, warrior wife.

At the smallest flicker of her tongue against him, hot and wet, he groans, and arches up against the ties again. Dany runs her fingers lightly over his chest. Brienne circles her tongue around the head of his cock, then she is sucking so lightly, so gently, and a shuddering moan escapes from him. 

“Fuck, Brienne, _please_.”

He is dead, and they have killed him. 

He prays to the gods made only for him. 

He pleads to die.

He will die a thousand times before the night is over, and gladly wed his killers for the chance to pray.

They can give only him their mercy. 

He must always die, for never has he felt a death so sweet.

The death of his pride is his prayer.

*

Brienne arches as Jon and Dany move against her, and Jaime thrusts against his bonds. He's almost impossibly hard now, and clenches his teeth. “Please,” he says, with a groan. “Please, Dany. I need...” 

“Yes.” She works quickly at the ties, and he is free. 

They arrange themselves, Jon behind, this time, Jaime in front, and Dany by Brienne's side. He is already so sensitive that the barest touch of his oiled hand to his cock makes his hips jerk, and Brienne and Dany stare. 

Brienne is hot and wet when he enters her. He tries to go slowly, but she jerks back against him. She pulls them all against her. “I need you.”

*

Jaime screams. 

The dragons wake. 

*

Dany adjusts the circlet of flowers in Jaime's hair. “You wear it rather well.” 

“Much better than I would a true crown,” he says.

Brienne rests her head on his stomach, stroking idly at his hand and stump. 

He reaches for Brienne's crown, threading it into her hair. “These are the truest crowns I know.”


	18. Valyrian

Dany watches them sleep. 

Her dark-eyed king, her maiden star, her golden supplicant.

Brightened by her dragonfire.

She is the moon, made by their gifts. 

Night, starlight, and sun.

They are hers.

She is theirs.

In their light, she sleeps.

*

She wakes slowly, silver shimmering behind mist.

Warm hands brush lightly against her skin, and on her mouth are the lightest of kisses.

She opens her eyes to see Jon and Jaime gently stroking her side. Brienne leans over her, smiling.

Through the window comes the fullest dark of night.

She is warm with the light around her.

Jon's voice is warm in her ear, and his breath is warm on her neck. 

“You've done so much for us tonight. We want to do something for you.” 

Jon kisses her, and it is soft, so soft. 

Then Brienne kisses her, and Jaime. Their mouths are gentle candles on her skin.

They make Daenerys the moon, and she is home.


	19. Alloys

Jon wakes.

The everything-world of his self greets him.

Pinpricks healed clean.

With mouths and hands and hearts.

*

Dany wakes.

She is home.

She is the Queen of herself only.

They will rule together.

This is enough.

*

Brienne wakes.

She is deliciously sore.

She is a woman, because she is a woman.

She did not need them to make her feel like one.

But they did.

*

Jaime wakes.

His wrists are raw and warm.

He was the night's penitent.

There were so many ways he asked for mercy.

He will have them all.

*

Dany and Brienne knock Jon into the dust.

Later, when the yard is full of twinkling stars, he will ask for a rematch.

There are benefits to having warriors for wives.

*

Jaime shoulders his pack and scuffs his feet through the sand. He's eager to explore.

They emerge from their chamber, laughing softly. Jon holds Brienne's hand, and Brienne rests her head on Jon's shoulder.

Delays are to be expected.

*

Brienne is on dragonback, squished between Jon and Jaime, with Dany on her lap. Her riding leathers are rather torn.

She considers what kind of scolding will be necessary when they arrive.

They will all need the hot spring by then.

*

Dawn sparkles on eggs that grow warmer every day.

Every morning, the curious come to the beach, leaving gifts.

Dany lines the cavern with them: flowers for her, and salves for her dragons.

After their baths, they will feel her touch.

For now, she rests with them, and feels their warmth.

*

Jon puts the finishing touches on the scroll with a flourish.

The deeds of his day are done.

Dany unbraids her hair, and the moon graces him with her light.

The stars shine upon him. One in particular.

Brienne smiles.

*

_I trust this letter finds you well._

_Jaime and Brienne deserve all the accolades you may give them._

_They deserve further commendation, however, for the work they have done after the war._

_We have experienced significant changes in our circumstances._

_Rumours of an unusual marriage are to be believed._

_Other equally unusual rumours are also truthful._

_We hope your rule is not too taxing, for it will continue indefinitely._

_You may both ride dragons one day._


End file.
